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THE 



IMPENDING CRISIS 



THE SOUTH: 

HOW TO MEET IT 

BY 

HINTON BOW AN HELPEK, 

OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



. Countrymen ! I sue for simple justice at your hands, 
Naught else I ask, nor less will have ; 
Act right, therefore, and yield my claim, 
Or, by the great God that made all things, 
I'll fight, till from my hones my flesh be hack'd l—Shakspeare. 

The liberal deviseth liberal things, 

And by liberal things shall he stand.— Isaiah. 



NE W-YOEK: 

BURDICK BROTHERS, 8 SPRUCE STREET. 

1857. 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1857, by 

HINTON ROWAN HELPER, 

In tho Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Southern District of New York. 



J. J. REED, 

PRISTEIt AND STEREOTYPES, 

IS Bpruoo-Bt, N. T. 



> - 



Jli 



&0 
HENRY M, WILLIS, 

OF CALIFORNIA, 

FORMERLY OF MARYLAND. 

WOODFORD C. HOLM AN, 

OF OREGON, 

FORMERLY OF KENTUCKY, 

MATTHEW K. SMITH, 

OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY, 

FORMERLY OF VIRGINIA, 
AND TO TFIE 

NON-SLAVEIIOLDING WHITES OF THE SOUTH 

GENERALLY, 

WHETHER AT HOME OR ABROAD, 

THIS WORK IS MOST CORDIALLY 

DEDICATED 

BY THEIR 

SINCERE FRIEND AND FELLOW-CITIZEN, 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



If my countrymen, particularly my countrymen of the South, 
still more particularly those of them who are non-slaveholders, 
shall peruse this work, they will learn that no narrow and partial 
doctrines of political or social economy, no prejudices of early 
education have induced me to write it. If, in any part of it,. I 
have actually deflected from the tone of true patriotism and na- 
tionality, I am unable to perceive the fault. What I have com- 
mitted to paper is but a fair reflex of the honest and long-settled 
convictions of my heart. 

In writing this book, it has been no part of my purpose to cast 
unmerited opprobrium upon slaveholders, or to display any special 
friendliness or sympathy for the blacks. I have considered my sub- 
ject more particularly with reference to its economic aspects as re- 
gards the whites— not with reference, except in a very slight de- 
gree, to its humanitarian or religious aspects. To the latter side 
of the question, Northern writers have already done full and 
timely justice. The genius of the North has also most ably and 
eloquently discussed the subject in the form of novels. Yankee 
wives have written the most popular anti-slavery literature of 



vi PREFACE. 

the day. Against this I have nothing to say ; it is all well 
enough for women to give the fictions of slavery ; men should 
give the facts. 

I trust that my friends and fellow-citizens of the South will 
read this book — nay, proud as any Southerner though I am, I 
entreat, I beg of them to do so. And as the work, considered 
with reference to its author's nativity, is a novelty — the South 
being my birth-place and my home, and my ancestry having resi- 
ded there for more than a century — so I indulge the hope that 
its reception by my fellow-Southrons will also be novel ; that is 
to say, that they will receive it, as it is offered, in a reasonable 
and friendly spirit, and that they will read it and reflect upon it 
as an honest and faithful endeavor to treat a subject of enormous 
import, without rancor or prejudice, by one who naturally comes 
within the pale of their own sympathies. 

An irrepressibly active desire to do something to elevate the 
South to an honorable and powerful position among the enlight- 
ened quarters of the globe, has been the great leading principle 
that has actuated me in the preparation of the present volume ; 
and so well convinced am I that the plan which I have proposed 
is the only really practical one for achieving the desired end, that 
I earnestly hope to see it prosecuted with energy and zeal, until 
the Flag of Freedom shall wave triumphantly alike over the val- 
leys of Virginia and the mounds of Mississippi. 

H. R. H. 

June, 1857. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAQB. 

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES.. 11 
Progress and Prosperity of the North — Inertness and Imbe- 
cility of the South — The True Cause and the Remedy — 
Quantity and Value of the Agricultural Products of the 
two Sections — Important Statistics — Wealth, Revenue, 
and Exdenditure of the several States — Sterling Extracts 
and General Remarks on Free and Slave Labor — The Im- 
mediate Abolition of Slavery the True Policy of the South. 

CHAPTER II. 

HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED 123 

Value of Lands in the Free and in the Slave States — A few 
Plain Words addressed to Slaveholders — The Old Home- 
stead — Area and Population of the several States, of the 
Territories, and of the District of Columbia — Number of 
Slaveholders in the United States — Abstract of the Au- 
thor's Plan for the Abolition of Slavery — Official Power 
and Despotism of the Oligarchy — Mal-treatment of the 
Non-slaveholding Whites — Liberal Slaveholders, and what 
may be expected of them— Slave-driving Democrats— Class- 
ification of Votes Polled at the Five Points Precinct in 
1856— Parts played by the Republicans, Whigs, Democrats, 
and Know-Nothings during the last Presidential Cam- 
paign — How and why Slavery should be Abolished with- 
out direct Compensation to the Masters — The American 
Colonization Society — Emigration to Liberia — Ultimatum 
of the Non-slaveholding Whites. 

CHAPTER III. 

SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY 188 

What the Fathers of the Republic thought of Slavery — 
Opinions of Washington — Jefferson — Madison — Monroe — 
Henry — Randolph — Clay — Benton — Mason — McDowell— 
Iredell — Pinkney — Leigh — Marshall — Boiling — Chandler 
— Summers — Preston — Fremont — Blair — Maury — Birney. 
Delaware — McLane. Maryland — Martin. Virginia — Bill of 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Rights. North Carolina — Mecklenhurg Declaration of In- 
dependence— Judge Ruffin. South Carolina— Extracts from 
the Writings of some of her more Sensible Sons. Georgia 
— Gen. Oglethorpe — Darien Resolutions. 

CHAPTER IV. 

NORTHERN TESTIMONY 235 

Opinions of Franklin — Hamilton — Jay — Adams — Webster 
—Clinton— Warren — Complimentary Allusions to Garrison, 
Greeley, Seward, Sumner, and others. 

CHAPTER V. 

TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS 245 

The Voice of England — Opinions of Mansfield — Locke — 
Pitt — Fox — Shakspeare — Cowper — Milton — Johnson — 
Price — Blacks tone — Coke — Hampden — Harrington — For- 
tescue — Brougham — The Voice of Ireland — Opinions of 
Burke — Curran — Extract from the Dublin University Mag- 
azine for December, 1856 — The Voice of Scotland — Opin- 
ions of Beattie— Miller — Macknight — The Voice of France 
— Opinions of Lafayette — Montesquieu — Louis X — Buffon 
— Rousseau — Brissot — The Voice of Germany — Opinions 
of Grotius — Goethe — Luther — Extract from the Letter of 
a living German writer to his Friends in this Country — 
The Voice of Italy — Opinions of Cicero — Lactantius — Leo 
X — The Voice of Greece — Opinions of Socrates — Aristotle 
— Polybius — Plato. 

CHAPTER VI. 

TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES 258 

Introductory Remarks — Presbyterian Testimony — Albert 
Barnes — Thomas Scott — General Assembly in 1818 — Sy- 
nod of Kentucky — Episcopal Testimony — Bishop Horsley 
— Bishop Butler — Bishop Porteus — John Jay — Anti- 
slavery Churchman — Baptist Testimony — Rev. Mr. Bris- 
bane, of South Carolina — Francis Wayland — Abraham 
Booth— Baptists of Virginia in 1789 — Methodist Testi- 
mony — John Wesley — Adam Clarke — Extracts from the 
Discipline for L784, '85 and '97— Catholic Testimony — 
Pope Gregory XVI — Pope Leo X — The Abbe Raynal — 
Henry Kemp. 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAQH. 

BIBLE TESTIMONY 275 

The Bible an Anti-Slavery Text-book — Selected Precepts 
and Sayings of the Old Testament — Selected Precepts and 
Sayings of the New Testament — Irrefragability of the Ar- 
guments here and elsewhere introduced against Slavery. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE 281 

Opening Remarks — General Statistics of the Free and of 
the Slave States — Tonnage, Exports, and Imports— Pro- 
ducts of Manufactures — Miles of Canals and Railroads in 
Operation — Public Schools— Libraries other than Private 
— Newspapers and Periodicals — Illiterate White Adults — 
— National Political Power of the two Sections — Popular 
Vote for President in 1856 — Patents Issued on New In- 
ventions—Value of Church Property — Acts of Benevo- 
lence — Contributions for the Bible Cause, Tract Cause, 
Missionary Cause, and Colonization Cause — Table of 
deaths in the several States in 1850- Number of Free 
White Male Persons over fifteen years of age engaged in 
Agriculture or other out-door Labor in the Slave States — 
Falsity of the Assertion that White Men cannot cultivate 
Southern Soil— White Female Agriculturists in North 
Carolina — Number of Natives of the Slave States in the 
Free States, and of Natives of the Free States in the Slave 
States— Value of the Slaves at $400 per head— List of 
Presidents of the United States— Judges of the Supreme 
Court— Secretaries of State— Presidents of the Senate — 
Speakers of the House — Postmasters General — Secretaries 
of the Interior — Secretaries of the Treasury — Secretaries 
f War— Secretaries of the Navy— Result of the Presiden- 
tial Elections in the United States from 1796 to 1856— Aid 
for Kansas— Contributions for the Sufferers in Ports- 
mouth, Va., during the Prevalence of the Yellow Fever in 
the Summer of 1855 — Congressional Representation — Cus- 
tom House Receipts-When the Old States were Settled and 
the New Admitted into the Union— First European Set- 
tlements in America — Freedom and Slavery at the Fair 
— What Freedom Did— What Slavery Did— Average Value 
per Acre of Lands in the States of New York and North 
Carolina. 



x CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE 

COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE 331 

P<ea for a great Southern Commercial City— Importance of 
Cities in General— Letters from the Mayors of sundry 
American Cities, North and South— Wealth and Popula- 
tion of New-York. Baltimore. Philadelphia, New-Orleans, 
Boston St. Louis, Brooklyn, Charleston, Cincinnati, Louis- 
ville Chicago. Richmond, Providence, Norfolk, Buffalo, 
Savannah, New-Bedford, Wilmington— Wealth Concen- 
trated at Commercial Points— Boston and its Business- 
Progressive Growth of Cities— A Fleet of Merchantmen- 
Commerce of Norfolk— Baltimore, Past, Present, and Fu- 
ture— Insignificance of Southern Commerce — Enslavement 
of Slaveholders to the Products of Northern Industry — 
Almost Utter Lack of Patrioitsm in Southern Merchants 
and Slaveholders. 

CHAPTER X. 

FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE 360 

Why this Work was not Published in Baltimore— Legisla- 
tive Acts Against Slavery— Testimony of a West India 
Planter to the Advantages of Free over Slave Labor — The 
True Friends of the South— Slavery Thoughtful— Signs of 
Contrition — Progress of Freedom in the South — Anti- 
slavery Extracts" from Southern Journals — A Right Feel- 
ing in the Right Quarter— The Illiterate Poor Whites of 
the South. 

CHAPTER XL 

SOUTHERN LITERATURE 383 

Instances of Protracted Literary Labor — Comparative In- 
significance of Periodical and General Literature in the 
Southern States — The New-York Tribune — Southern Sys- 
tem of Publishing — Book-making in America — The Busi- 
ness of the Messrs. Harper — Southern Journals Struggling 
for Existenc* — Paucity of Southern Authors — Proportion 
of White Adults, over Twenty Years of Age, in each State, 
who cannot Read and Write, to the Whole White Popu- 
lation — Southern Authors Compelled to S'eek Northern 
Publishers — Conclusion. 



CHAPTER I. 

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 

It is not our intention in this chapter to enter into an 
elaborate ethnographical essay, to establish peculiarities 
of difference, mental, moral, and physical, in the great 
family of man. Neither is it our design to launch into a 
philosophical disquisition on the laws and principles of 
light and darkness, with a view of educing any additional 
evidence of the fact, that as a general rule, the rays of 
the sun are more fructifying and congenial than the shades 
of night. Nor yet is it our purpose, by writing a formal 
treatise on ethics, to draw a broad line of distinction be- 
tween right and wrong, to point out the propriety of mor- 
ality and its advantages over immorality, nor to waste 
time in pressing a universally admitted truism — that vir- 
tue is preferable to vice. Self-evident truths require no 
argumentative demonstration. 

What we mean to do is simply this : to take a survey 
of the relative position and importance of the several 
states of this confederacy, from the adoption of the na- 
tional compact ; and when, of two sections of the country 
starting under the same auspices, and with equal natural 
advantages, we find the one rising to a degree of almost 
unexampled power and eminence, and the other sinking 



12 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

into a state of comparative imbecility and obscurity, it is 
our determination to trace out tbe causes which have led 
to the elevation of the former, and the depression of the 
latter, and to use our most earnest and honest endeavors 
to utterly extirpate whatever opposes the progress and 
prosperity of any portion of the union. 

This survey we have already made ; we have also in- 
stituted an impartial comparison between the cardinal 
sections of the country, north, south, east, and west ; and 
as a true hearted southerner, whose ancestors have resided 
in North Carolina between one and two hundred years, 
and as one who would rather have his native clime excel 
than be excelled, we feel constrained to confess that we 
are deeply abashed and chagrined at the disclosures of 
the comparison thus instituted. At the time of the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, in 1*189, we commenced an even 
race with the North. All things considered, if either the 
North or the South had the advantage, it was the latter. 
In proof of this, let us introduce a few statistics, begin- 
ning with the states of 

NEW YORK AND VIRGINIA. 

In 1190, when the first census was taken, New York 
contained 340,120 inhabitants ; at the same time the pop- 
ulation of Virginia was 148,308, being more than twice 
the number of New York. Just sixty years afterward, as 
we learn from the census of 1850, New York had a popu- 
lation of 3,091,394 ; while that of Virginia was only 
1,421,661, being less than half the number of New York ! 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 13 

In 1191, the exports of New York amounted to $2,505,- 
465 ; the exports of Virginia amounted to $3,130,865. In 
1852, the exports of New York amounted to $81,484,456 ; 
the exports of Virginia, during the same year, amounted 
to only $2,124,651. In 1190, the imports of New York 
and Virginia were about equal ; in 1853, the imports of 
New York amounted to the enormous sum of $118,210,- 
999 ; while those of Virginia, for the same period, amount- 
ed to the pitiful sum of only $399,004. In 1850, the pro- 
ducts of manufactures, mining and the mechanic arts in 
New York amounted to $231,591,249 ; those of Virginia 
amounted to only $29,105,381. At the taking of the last 
census, the value of real and personal property in Vir- 
ginia, including negroes, was $391,640,438 ; that of New 
York, exclusive of any monetary valuation of human be- 
ings, was $1,080,309,216. 

In August, 1856, the real and personal estate assessed 
in the City of New- York amounted in valuation to $511,- 
140,491, showing that New- York City alone is worth far 
more than the whole State of Virginia. 

What says one of Virginia's own sons ? He still lives ; 
hear him speak. Says Gov. Wise : 

" It may be painful, but nevertheless, profitable, to re- 
cur occasionally to the history of the past ; to listen to the 
admonitions of experience, and learn lessons of wisdom 
from the efforts and actions of those who have preceded 
us in the drama of human life. The records of former days 
show that at a period not very remote, Virginia stood pre- 
eminently the first commercial State in the Union ; when 
her commerce exceeded in amount that of all the New 



14 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

England States combined ; when the City of Norfolk 
owned more than one hundred trading ships, and her di- 
rect foreign trade exceeded that of the City of New-York, 
now the centre of trade and the great emporium of North 
America. At the period of the war of independence, the 
commerce of Virginia was four times larger than that of 

New-York" 

The cash value of all the farms, farming implements 
and machinery in Virginia, in 1850, was $223,423,315 ; the 
value of the same in New-York, in the same year, was 
1516,631,568. In about the same ratio does the value of 
•ricultural products and live stock of New-York ex- 
ceed the value of the agricultural products and live stock 
of Virginia, But we will pursue this humiliating compa- 
rison no further. With feelings mingled with indignation 
and disgust, we turn from the picture, and will now pay 
our respects to 

MASSACHUSETTS AND NORTH CAROLINA. 

In 1190, Massachusetts contained 318,111 inhabitants ; 
in the Bame year North Carolina contained 393,151 ; in 
1850, the population of Massachusetts was 991,514, all 
freemen ; while that of North Carolina was only 869,039, 
of whom 288,548 were slaves. Massachusetts has an area 
of only 1,800 square miles ; the area of North Carolina is 
50,104 square miles, which, though less than Virginia, is 
considerably largei than the State of New-York. Massa- 
chusetts and North Carolina each have a harbor, Boston 
and Beaufort, which harbors* with the States that back 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 15 

them, are, by nature, possessed of about equal capacities 
and advantages for commercial and manufacturing enter- 
prise. Boston has grown to be the second commercial 
city in the Union ; her ships, freighted with the useful and 
unique inventions and manufactures of her ingenious arti- 
sans and mechanics, and bearing upon their stalwart arms 
the majestic flag of our country, glide triumphantly through 
the winds and over the waves of every ocean. She has 
done, and is now doing, great honor to herself, her State 
and the nation, and her name and fame are spoken with 
reverence in the remotest regions of the earth. 

How is it with Beaufort, in North Carolina, whose har- 
bor is said to be the safest and most commodious any- 
where to be found on the Atlantic coast south of the har- 
bor of New- York, and but little inferior to that? Has 
anybody ever heard of her ? Do the masts of her ships 
ever cast a shadow on foreign waters ? Upon what dis- 
tant or benighted shore have her merchants and mariners 
ever hoisted our national ensign, or spread the arts of 
civilization and peaceful industry ? What changes worthy 
of note have taken place in the physical features of her 
superficies since " the evening and the morning were the 
third day ?" But we will make no further attempt to 
draw a comparison between the populous, wealthy, and 
renowned city of Boston and the obscure, despicable little 
village of Beaufort, which, notwithstanding " the placid 
bosom of its deep and well-protected harbor," has no place 
In the annals or records of the country, and has scarcely 
ever been heard of fifty miles from home. 

In 1853, the exports of Massachusetts amounted to 



16 COMPAEISON BETWEEN THE 

§16,895,304, and her imports to $41,36*7,956 ; during the 
same time, and indeed during all the time, from the period 
of the formation of the government up to the year 1853, 
inclusive, the exports and imports of North Carolina were 
so utterly insignificant that we are ashamed to record 
them. In 1850, the products of manufactures, mining and 
the mechanic arts in Massachusetts, amounted to $151,- 
137,145 ; those of North Carolina, to only $9,111,245. In 
1856, the products of these industrial pursuits in Massa- 
chusetts had increased to something over $288,000,000, a 
sum more than twice the value of the entire cotton crop 
of all the Southern States 1 In 1850, the cash value of all 
the farms, farming implements and machinery in Massa- 
chusetts, was $112,285,931 ; the value of the same in 
North Carolina, in the same year, was only $71,823,298. 
In 1850, the value of all the real and personal estate in 
Massachusetts, without recognizing property in man, or 
Betting a monetary price on the head of a single citizen, 
white or black, amounted to $573,342,286 ; the value of 
the same in North Carolina, including negroes, amounted 
to only $226,800,472. In 1856, the real and personal 
( Btate assessed in the City of Boston amounted in valua- 
tion to within a fraction of $250,000,000, showing conclu- 
sively that so far as dollars and cents are concerned, that 
single city could buy the whole State of North Carolina, 
and by righl of purchase, if sanctioned by the Constitu- 

' the United Stales, and by State Constitutions, hold 
her as a province. In 1850, there were in Massachusetts 

native white and free colored persons over twenty 
y.ars of age who could not read and write ; in the same 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 17 

year, the same class of persons in North Carolina num- 
bered 80,083 ; while her 288,548 slaves were, by legisla- 
tive enactments, kept in a state of absolute ignorance and 
unconditional subordination. 

Hoping, however, and believing, that a large majority 
of the most respectable and patriotic citizens of North 
Carolina have resolved, or will soon resolve, with unyield- 
ing purpose, to cast aside the great obstacle that impedes 
their progress, and bring into action a new policy which 
will lead them from poverty and ignorance to wealth and 
intellectual greatness, and which will shield them not on- 
ly from the rebukes of their own consciences, but also from 
the just reproaches of the civilized world, we will, for the 
present, in deference to their feelings, forbear the further 
enumeration of these degrading disparities, and turn our 
attention to 

PENNSYLVANIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 

An old gentleman, now residing in Charleston, told us, 
but a few months since, that he had a distinct recollection 
of the time when Charleston imported foreign fabrics for 
the Philadelphia trade, and when, on a certain occasion, 
his mother went into a store on Market-street to select a 
silk dress for herself, the merchant, unable to please her 
fancy, persuaded her to postpone the selection for a few 
days, or until the arrival of a new stock of superb styles 
and fashions which he had recently purchased in the me- 
tropolis of South Carolina. This was all very proper. 
Charleston had a spacious harbor, a central position, and 



18 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

a mild climate ; and from priority of settlement and busi- 
ness connections, to say nothing of other advantages, she 
enjoyed greater facilities for commercial transactions than 
Philadelphia. She -had a right to get custom wherever 
she could find it, and in securing so valuable a customer 
as the Quaker City, she exhibited no small degree of laud- 
able enterprise. But why did she not maintain her supre- 
macy ? If the answer to this query is not already in the 
reader's mind, it will suggest itself before he peruses the 
of this work. For the present, suffice it to say, 
that the cause of her shameful insignificance and decline 
is essentially the same that has thrown every other South- 
ern city and State in the rear of progress, and rendered 
them tributary, in a commercial and manufacturing point 
of view, almost entirely tributary, to the more sagacious 
and enterprising States and cities of the North. 

A most unfortunate day was that for the Palmetto State, 
and indeed for the whole South, when the course of trade 
was changed, and she found herself the retailer of foreign 
and domestic goods, imported and vended by wholesale 
merchants at the North. Philadelphia ladies no longer 
look to the South for late fashions, aud fine silks and 
satins ; no Quaker dame now wears drab apparel of 
Charleston importation. Like all other niggervilles in our 
disreputable part of the confederacy, the commercial em- 
porhim of South Carolina is sick and impoverished ; her 
silver cool hits been loosed; her golden bowl has been 
; ami her unhappy people, without proper or profit- 
able employment, poor in pocket, and few in number, go 
mourning or loafing about the streets. Her annual im- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 19 

.. . .ations are 'actually less now than they were a century 
ago, when South Carolina was the second commercial 
province on the continent, Virginia being the first. 

In 1760, as we learn from Mr. Benton's " Thirty Years' 
View," the foreign imports into Charleston were $2,662,- 
000 ; in 1855, they amounted to only $1,750,000 ! In 
1854, the imports into Philadelphia, which, in foreign 
trade, ranks at present but fourth among the commercial 
cities of the union, were $21,963,021. In 1850, the pro- 
ducts of manufactures, mining, and the mechanic arts, in 
Pennsylvania, amounted to $155,044,910 ; the products of 
the same in South Carolina, amounted to only $7,063,513. 

As shown by the census report of 1850, which was pre- 
pared under the superintendence of a native of South Car- 
olina, who certainly will not be suspected of injustice to 
his own section of the country, the Southern states, the 
cash value of all the farms, farming implements, and ma- 
chinery in Pennsylvania, was $422,598,640 ; the value of 
the same in South Carolina, in the same year, was only 
$86,518,038. From a compendium of the same census, we 
learn that the value of all the real and personal property 
in Pennsylvania, actual pi'operty, no slaves, amounted to 
$729,144,998 ; the value of the same in South Carolina, 
including the estimated — we were about to say fictitious 
— value of 384,925 negroes, amounted to only $288,257,- 
694. We have not been able to obtain the figures neces- 
sary to show the exact value of the real and personal es- 
tate in Philadelphia, but the amount is estimated to be not 
less than $300,000,000 ; and as, in 1850, there were 408,- 
762 free inhabitants in the single city of Philadelphia, 



20 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

against 283,544 of the same class, in theVl)?]* gj2*§fc$ 
South Carolina, it is quite evident that the former is more 
powerful than the latter, and far ahead of her in all the 
elements of genuine and permanent superiority. In Penn- 
sylvania, in 1850, the annual income of public schools 
amounted to $1,348,249 ; the same in South Carolina, in 
the same years, amounted to only $200,600 ; in the former 
state there were 393 libraries other than private, in the 
latter only 26 ; in Pennsylvania 310 newspapers and pe- 
riodicals were published, circulating 84,898,672 copies an- 
nually ; in South Carolina only 46 newspapers and peri- 
odicals were published, circulating but 1,145,930 copies 
per annum. 

The incontrovertible facts we have thus far presented 
are, we think, amply sufficient, both in number and mag- 
nitude, to bring conviction to the mind of every candid 
r, that there is something wrong, socially, politically 
and morally wrong, in the policy under which the South 
has so long loitered and languished. Else, how is it that 
the North, under the operations of a policy directly the 
opposite of ours, has sui'passed us in almost everything 
great and good, and left us standing before the world, an 
object of merited reprehension and derision ? 

Pot one, we arc heartily ashamed of the inexcusable 
aess, inertia and dilapidation everywhere so manifest 
tEroughont our native section; but the blame properly 
attaches itself to an usurping minority of the people, and 
v ■ are determined that it shall rest where it belongs. 
More "ii this subject, however, after a brief but general 
of the inequalities and disparities that exist between 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 21 

~9sC • w ^ divisions of the country, which, without 

reference to the situation that any part of their territory 
bears to the cardinal points, are every day becoming more 
familiarly known by the appropriate appellation of 



THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 

It is a fact well known to every intelligent Southerner 
that we are compelled to go to the North for almost every 
article of utility and adornment, from matches, shoepegs 
and paintings up to cotton-mills, steamships and statuary ; 
that we have no foreign trade, no princely merchants, nor 
respectable artists ; that, in comparison with the free 
states, we contribute nothing to the literature, polite arts 
and inventions of the age ; that, for want of profitable 
employment at home, large numbers of our native popula- 
tion find themselves necessitated to emigrate to the West, 
whilst the free states retain not only the larger proportion 
of those born within their own limits, but induce, annually, 
hundreds of thousands of foreigners to settle and remain 
amongst them ; that almost everything produced at the 
North meets with ready sale, while, at the same time, 
there is no demand, even among our own citizens, for the 
productions of Southern industry ; that, owing to the 
absence of a proper system of business amongst us, the 
North becomes, in one way or another, the proprietor and 
dispenser of all our floating wealth, and that we are de- 
pendent on Northern capitalists for the means necessary 
to build our railroads, canals and other public improve- 
ments ; that if we want to visit a foreign country, even 



22 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

though it may lie directly South of us, * ? find no r-veuient 
way of getting there except by taking passage through a 
Northern port ; and that nearly all the profits arising from 
the exchange of commodities, from insurances and shipping 
offices, and from the thousand and one industrial pursuits 
of the country, accrue to the North, and are there invested 
in the erection of those magnificent cities and stupendous 
works of art which dazzle the eyes of the South, and attest 
the superiority of free institutions ! 

The North is the Mecca of our merchants, and to it they 
i ,11 ist and do make two pilgrimages per annum — one in the 
spring and one in the fall. All our commercial, mechanical, 
manufactural, and literary supplies come from there. We 
want Bibles, brooms, buckets and books, and we go to the 
North ; we want pens, ink, paper, wafers and envelopes, 
and we go to the North ; we want shoes, hats, handker- 
chiefs, umbrellas and pocket knives, and we go to the 
North ; we want furniture, crockery, glassware and pianos, 
and we go to the North ; we want toys, primers, school 
books, fashionable apparel, machinery, medicines, tomb- 
stones, and a thousand other things, and we go to the 
North for them all. Instead of keeping our money in cir- 
culation at home, by patronizing our own mechanics, man- 
ufacturers, and laborers, we send it all away to the North, 
and there it remains ; it never falls into our hands again. 
In one way or another we are more or less subservient 
to tin- North every day of our lives. In infancy we are 
swaddled in Northern muslin; in childhood we are hu- 
mored with Northern gewgaws ; in youth we are instruct- 
ed 'ut of Northern books ; at the age of maturity we sow 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 23 

our " wild oats" on Northern soil ; in middle-life we ex- 
haust our wealth, energies and talents in the dishonorable 
vocation of entailing our dependence on our children and 
on our children's children, and, to the neglect of our own 
interests and the interests of those around us, in giving 
aid and succor to every department of Northern power ; 
in the decline of life we remedy our eye-sight with Nor- 
thren spectacles, and support our infirmities with Northern 
canes ; in old age we are drugged with Northern physic ; 
and, finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded 
in Northern cambric, are stretched upon the bier, borne to 
the grave in a Northern carriage, entombed with a Nor- 
thern spade, and memorized with a Northern slab ! 

But it can hardly be necessary to say more in illustra- 
tion of this unmanly and unnational dependence, which is 
so glaring that it cannot fail to be appai'ent to even the 
most careless and superficial observer. All the world 
sees, or ought to see, that in a commercial, mechanical, 
manufactural, financial, and literary point of view, we are 
as helpless as babies ; that, in comparison with the Free 
States, our agricultural resources have been greatly ex- 
aggerated, misunderstood and mismanaged ; and that, in- 
stead of cultivating among ourselves a wise policy of mu- 
tual assistance and co-operation with respect to individ- 
uals, and of self-reliance with respect to the South at large, 
instead of giving countenance and encouragement to the 
industrial enterprise projected in our midst, and instead 
of building up, aggrandizing and beautifying our own 
States, cities and towns, we have been spending our sub- 
stance at the North, and are daily augmenting and 



•J l COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

strengthening the very power which now has us so com- 
pletely under its thumb. 

It thus appears, in view of the preceding statistical 
facts and arguments, that the South, at one time the su- 
perior of the North in almost all the ennobling pursuits 
and conditions of life, has fallen far behind her competitor, 
and now ranks more as the dependency of a mother coun- 
try than as the equal confederate of free and independent 
States. Following the order of our task, the next duty 
that devolves upon us is to trace out the causes which 
have conspired to bring about this important change, and 
to place on record the reasons, as we understand them, 

WnY THE NORTH HAS SURPASSED THE SOUTH. 

And now that we have come to the very heart and soul 
of our subject, we feel no disposition to mince matters, 
but mean to speak plainly, and to the point, without any 
equivocation, mental reservation, or secret evasion what- 
ever. The son of a venerated parent, who, while he lived, 
was a considerate and merciful slaveholder, a native of 
the South, born and bred in North Carolina, of a family 
whose home has been in the valley of the Yadkin for near- 
ly a century and a half, a Southerner by instinct and by 
all the influences of thought, habits, and kindred, and with 
the desire and fixed purpose to reside permanently within 
the limits of the South, and with the expectation of dying 
there also — we feel that we have the right to express our 
opinion, however humble or unimportant it maybe, on any 
and every question that affects the public good ; and, so 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 25 

help us God, " sink or swim, live or die, survive or per- 
ish," we are determined to exercise that right with manly 
firmness, and without fear, favor or aifection. 

And now to the point. In our opinion, an opinion which 
has been formed from data obtained by assiduous re- 
searches, and comparisons, from laborious investigation, 
logical reasoning, and earnest reflection, the causes which 
have impeded the progress and prosperity of the South, 
which have dwindled our commerce, and other similar 
pursuits, into the most contemptible insignificance ; sunk 
a large majority of our people in galling poverty and ig- 
norance, rendered a small minority conceited and tyran- 
nical, and driven the rest away from their homes ; entailed 
upon us a humiliating dependence on the Free States ; dis- 
graced us in the recesses of our own souls, and brought 
us under reproach in the eyes of all civilized and enlight- 
ened nations — may all be traced to one common source, 
and there find solution in the most hateful and horrible 
word, that was ever incorporated into the vocabulary of 
human economy — Slavery ! 

Eeared amidst the institution of slavery, believing it to 
be wrong both in principle and in practice, and having 
seen and felt its evil influences upon individuals, commu- 
nities and states, we deem it a duty, no less than a privi- 
lege, to enter our protest against it, and to use our most 
strenuous efforts to overturn and abolish it ! Then we 
are an abolitionist ? Yes 1 not merely a freesoiler, but an 
abolitionist, in the fullest sense of the term. We are not 
only in favor of keeping slavery out of the territories, but, 
carrying our opposition to the institution a step further, 



26 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

wc here unhesitatingly declare ourself in favor of its im- 
mediate and unconditional abolition, in every state in this 
confederacy, where it now exists ! Patriotism makes us 
a freesoiler ; state pride makes us an emancipationist ; a 
profound sense of duty to the South makes us an abolition- 
ist ; a reasonable degree of fellow feeling for the negro. 
makes us a colonizationist. With the free state men in 
Kanzas and Nebraska, we sympathize with all our heart. 
"We love the whole country, the great family of states and 
territories, one and inseparable, and would have the word 
Liberty engraved as an appropriate and truthful motto, on 
the escutcheon of every member of the confederacy. We 
love freedom, we hate slavery, and rather than give up 
the one or submit to the other, we will forfeit the pound 
of flesh nearest our heart. Is this sufficiently explicit and 
categorical ? If not, we hold ourself in readiness at all 
times, to return a prompt reply to any proper question 
that may be propounded. 

Our repugnance to the institution of slavery, springs 
from no one-sided idea, or sickly sentimentality. "We have 
not been hasty in making up our mind on the subject ; we 
have jumped at no conclusions ; we have acted with per- 
fect calmness and deliberation ; we have carefully consid- 
tnined the reasons for and against the insti- 
tution, and have also taken into account the propable con- 
sequences of our decision. The more we investigate the 
matter, the deeper becomes the conviction that we are right; 
and with this to impel and sustain us, we pursue our labor 
with love, with hope, and with constantly renewing vigor. 

That we shall encounter opposition we consider as cer- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 2t 

tain ; perhaps we may even be subjected to insult and 
violence. From the conceited and cruel oligarchy of the 
South, we could look for nothing less. But we shall 
shrink from no responsibility, and do nothing unbecoming 
a man ; we know how to repel indignity, and if assaulted, 
shall not fail to make the blow recoil upon the aggres- 
sor's head. The road we have to travel may be a rough 
one, but no impediment shall cause us to falter in our 
course. The line of our duty is clearly defined, and it is 
our intention to follow it faithfully, or die in the attempt. 

But, thanks to heaven, we have no ominous forebodings 
of the result of the contest now pending between Liberty 
and Slavery in this confederacy. Though neither a prophet 
nor the son of a prophet, our vision is sufficiently pene- 
trative to divine the future so far as to be able to see that 
the " peculiar institution" has but a short, and, as hereto- 
fore, inglorious existence before it. Time, the righter of 
every wrong, is ripening events for the desired consumma- 
tion of our labors and the fulfillment of our cherished 
hopes. Each revolving year brings nearer the inevitable 
crisis. The sooner it comes the better ; may heaven, 
through our humble efforts, hasten its advent. 

The first and most sacred duty of every Southerner, who 
has the honor and the interest of his country at heart, is 
to declare himself an unqualified and uncompromising abo- 
litionist. No conditional or half-way declaration will 
avail ; no mere threatening demonstration will succeed. 
With those who desire to be instrumental in bringing 
about the triumph of liberty over slavery, there should be 
neither evasion, vacillation, nor equivocation. We should 



28 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

listen to no modifying terms or compromises that may be 
proposed by the proprietors of the unprofitable and ungod- 
ly institution. Nothing short of the complete abolition of 
slavery can save the South from falling into the vortex of 
utter ruin. Too long have we yielded a submissive obe- 
dience to the tyrannical domination of an inflated oligar- 
chy ; too long have we tolerated their arrogance and self- 
conceit ; too long have we submitted to their unjust and 
savage exactions. Let us now wrest from them the scep- 
tre of power, establish liberty and equal rights through- 
out the land, and henceforth and forever guard our legis- 
lative halls from the pollutions and usurpations of pro- 
slavery demagogues. 

We have stated, in a cursory manner, the reasons, as 
we understand them, why the North has surpassed the 
South, and have endeavored to show, we think success- 
fully, that the political salvation of the South depends up- 
on the speedy and unconditional abolition of slavery. We 
will not, however, rest the case exclusively on our own 
arguments, but will again appeal to incontrovertible facts 
and statistics to sustain us in our conclusions. But be- 
fore we do so, we desire to fortify ourself against a charge 
that is too frequently made by careless and superficial 
readers. We allude to the objections so often urged 
against the use of tabular statements and statistical facts 
It is worthy of note, however, that those objections never 
come from thorough scholars or profound thinkers. Among 
the majority of mankind, the science of statistics is only 
beginning to be appreciated; when well understood, it 
will be recognized' as one of the most important branches 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 29 

of knowledge, and, as a matter of course, be introduced 
and taught as an indispensable element of practical edu- 
cation in all our principal institutions of learning. One 
of the most vigorous and popular transatlantic writers of 
the day, Wm. C. Taylor, LL.D., of Dublin, says : 

" The cultivation of statistics must be the source of all 
future improvement in the science of political economy, 
because it is to the table of the statistician that the eco- 
nomist must look for his facts ; and all speculations not 
founded upon facts, though they may be admired and ap- 
plauded when first propounded, will, in the end, assuredly 
be forgotten. Statistical science may almost be regarded 
as the creation of this age. The word statistics was in- 
vented in the middle of the last century by a German pro- 
fessor,* to express a summary view of the physical, moral, 
and social conditions of States ; he justly remarked, that 
a numerical statement of the extent, density of population, 
imports, exports, revenues, etc., of a country, more per- 
fectly explained its social condition than general state- 
ments, however graphic or however accurate. When 
such statements began to be collected, and exhibited in a 
popular form, it was soon discovered that the political and 
economical sciences were likely to gain the position of 
physical sciences ; that is to say, they were about to ob- 
tain records of observation, which would test the accu- 
racy of recognized principles, and lead to the discovery of 
new modes of action. But the great object of this new 
science is to lead to the knowledge of human nature ; that 

* Achenwall, a native of Elbing, Prussia. Born 1719, died 1792. 



30 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

is, to ascertain the general course of operation of man's 
mental and moral faculties, and to furnish us with a cor- 
rect standard of judgment, by enabling us to determine 
the average amount of the past as a guide to the average 
probabilities of the future. This science is yet in its in- 
fancy, but has already produced the most beneficial effects. 
The accuracy of the tables of life have rendered the cal- 
culations of rates of insurance a matter of much greater 
certainty than they were heretofore ; the system of keep- 
ing the public accounts has been simplified and improved; 
and finally, the experimental sciences of medicine and po- 
litical economy, have been fixed on a firmer foundation 
than could be anticipated in the last century. Even in 
private life this science is likely to prove of immense ad- 
vantage, by directing attention to the collection and regis- 
tration of facts, and thus preventing the formation of hasty 
judgments and erroneous conclusions." 

The compiler, or rather the superintendent of the seventh 
United States census, Prof. De Bow, a gentleman of more 
than ordinary industry and practical learning, who, in his 
excellent Eeview, has, from time to time, displayed much 
commendable zeal in his efforts to develop the industrial 
resources of the Southern and South-western states, and 
who is, perhaps, the greatest statistician in the country, 
says : — 

" Statistics are far from being the barren array of figures 
ingeniously and laboriously combined into columns and 
tables, which many persons are apt to suppose them. 
They constitute rather the ledger of a nation, in which, 
like the merchant in his books, the citizen can read, at ono 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 31 

view, all of the results of a year or of a period of years, as 
compared with other periods, and deduce the profit or the 
loss which has been made, in morals, education, wealth or 
power." 

Impressed with a sense of the propriety of introducing, 
in this as well as in the succeeding chapters of our work, 
a number of tabular statements exhibiting the comparative 
growth and prosperity of the free and slave states, we have 
deemed it eminently proper to adduce the testimony of 
these distinguished authors in support of the claims which 
official facts and accurate statistics lay to our considera- 
tion. And here we may remark that the statistics which 
we propose to offer, like those already given, have been 
obtained from official sources, and may, therefore, be relied 
on as correct. The object we have in view in making a 
free use of facts and figures, if not already apparent, will 
soon be understood. It is not so much in its moral and 
religious aspects that we propose to discuss the question 
of slavery, as in its social and political character and 
influences. To say nothing of the sin and the shame of 
slavery, we believe it is a most expensive and unprofitable 
institution ; and if our brethren of the South will but 
throw aside their unfounded prejudices and preconceived 
opinions, and give us a fair and patient hearing, we feel 
confident that we can bring them to the same conclusion. 
Indeed, we believe we shall be enabled — not alone by our 
own contributions, but with the aid of incontestable facts 
and arguments which we shall introduce from other sources 
— to convince all true-hearted, candid and intelligent 
Southerners, who may chance to read our book, (and we 



32 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

hope their name may be legion) that slavery, and nothing 
but slavery, has retarded the progress and prosperity of 
our portion of the Union ; depopulated and impoverished 
our cities by forcing the more industrious and enterprising 
natives of the soil to emigrate to the free states ; brought 
our domain under a sparse and inert population by pre- 
venting foreign immigration ; made us tributary to the 
North, and reduced us to the humiliating condition of mere 
provincial subjects in fact, though not in name. We 
believe, moreover, that every patriotic Southerner thus 
convinced will feel it a duty he owes to himself, to his 
country, and to his God, to become a thorough, inflexible, 
practical abolitionist. So mote it be ! 

Now to our figures. Few persons have an adequate 
idea of the important part the cardinal numbers are now 
playing in the cause of Liberty. They are working won- 
ders in the South. Intelligent, business men, from the 
Chesapeake to the Rio Grande, are beginning to see that 
slavery, even in a mercenary point of view, is impolitic, 
because it is unprofitable. Those unique, mysterious little 
Arabic sentinels on the watch-towers of political economy, 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, *I, 8, 9, 0, have joined forces, allied them- 
selves to the powers of freedom, and are hemming in and 
combatting the institution with the most signal success. 
If lei alone, we have no doubt the digits themselves would 
soon terminate the existence of slavery ; but we do not 
mean to let them alone ; they must not have all the honor 
efa in iih Hating the monstrous iniquity. We want to become 
an auxiliary in the good work, and facilitate it. The lib- 
eration of five millions of "poor white trash" from the 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 33 

second degree of slavery, and of three millions of miserable 
kidnapped negroes from the first degree, cannot be accom- 
plished too soon. That it was not accomplished many 
years ago is our misfortune. It now behooves us to take 
a bold and determined stand in defence of the inalienable 
rights of ourselves and of our fellow men, and to avenge 
the multiplicity of wrongs, social and political, which we 
have suffered at the hands of a villainous oligarchy. It is 
madness to delay. We cannot be too hasty in carrying 
out our designs. Precipitance in this matter is an utter 
impossibility. If to-day we could emancipate all the slaves 
in the Union, we would do it, and the country and every- 
body in it would be vastly better off to-morrow. Now is 
the time for action ; let us work. 

By taking a sort of inventory of the agricultural products 
of the free and slave States in 1850, we now propose to 
correct a most extraordinary and mischievous error into 
which the people of the South have unconsciously fallen. 
Agriculture, it is well known, is the sole boast of the 
South ; and, strange to say, many pro-slavery Southerners, 
who, in our latitude, pass for intelligent men, are so puffed 
up with the idea of our importance in this respect, that 
they speak of the North as a sterile region, unfit for culti- 
vation, and quite dependent on the South for the necessa- 
ries of life ! Such rampant ignorance ought to be knocked 
in the head ! We can prove that the North produces 
greater quantities of bread-stuffs than the South ! Figures 
shall show the facts. Properly, the South has nothing left 
to boast of ; the North has surpassed her in everything, 

and is going farther and farther ahead of her every day. 

2* 



■J4 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

We ask the reader's careful attention to the following- 
tables, which we have prepared at no little cost of time 
and trouble, and which, when duly considered in connection 
with the foregoing- and subsequent portions of our work, 
will, we believe, carry conviction to the mind that the 
downward tendency of the South can be arrested only by 
the abolition of slavery. 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 



35 



TABLE NO. I. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts... 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania. . . . 
Rhode Island — 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Wheat, 


Oats, 


Indian Corn, 


bushels. 


bushels. 


bushels. 


17,223 




12,236 


41,762 


1,258,738 


1,935,043 


9,414,575 


10,087,241 


57,616,984 


6,214,458 


5,655,014 


52,964,363 


1,530,581 


1,524,345 


8,656,799 


296,259 


2,181,037 


1,750,056 


31,211 


1,165,146 


2,345,190 


4,925,889 


2,866,056 


5,641,420 


185,653 


973,381 


1,573,670 


1,601,190 


3,378,063 


8,759,704 


13,121,498 


26,552,814 


17,858,400 


14,487,351 


13,472,742 


59,078,695 


15,367,691 


21,538,156 


19,835,214 


49 


215,232 


539,201 


535,955 


2,307,734 


2,032,396 


4,286,131 


3,414,672 


1,988,979 


72,157,486 


96,590,371 


242,618,650 



TABLE NO. II. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi. . .. 

Missouri.. 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Wheat, 


Oats, 


Indian Corn, 


bushels. 


bushels. 


bushels. 


294,044 


2,965,696 


28,754,048 


199,639 


656,183 


8,893,939 


482,511 


604,518 


3,145,542 


1,027 


66,586 


1,996,809 


1,088,534 


3,820,044 


30,080,099 


2,142,822 


8,201,311 


58,672,591 


417 


89,637 


10,266,373 


4,494,680 


2,242,151 


10,749,858 


137,990 


1,503,288 


22,446,552 


2,981,652 


5,278,079 


36,214,537 


2,130,102 


4,052,078 


27,941,051 


1,066,277 


2,322,155 


16,271,454 


1,619,386 


7,703,086 


52,276,223 


41,729 


199,017 


6,028,876 


11,212,616 


10,179,144 


35,254,319 


27,904,476 


49,882,979 


348,992,282 



3G 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 



TABLE NO. III. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.. . 
Rhode Island.. . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Potatoes, (I. 


Rye, 


Barley, 


& 8.) bush. 


bushels. 


bushels. 


10,292 




9,712 


2,689,805 


600,893 


19,099 


2,672,294 


83,364 


110,795 


2,285,048 


78,792 


45,483 


282,363 


19,916 


25,093 


3,436,040 


102,916 


151,731 


3,585,384 


481,021 


112,385 


2,361,074 


105,871 


75,249 


4,307,919 


183,117 


70,256 


3,715,251 


1,255,578 


6,492 


15,403,997 


4,148,182 


3,585,059 


5,245,760 


425,918 


354,358 


6,032,904 


4,805,160 


165,584 


651,029 


26,409 


18,875 


4,951,014 


176,233 


42,150 


1,402,956 


81,253 


209,692 


59,033,170 


12,574,623 


5,002,013 



TABLE NO. IV. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 

Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina.. 
South Carolina.. 

Tennessee 

'i • cas 

Virginia 



Potatoes, (I. 
& S.) bush. 



5,721,205 

981,981 

305,985 

765,054 

7,213,807 

2,490,666 

1,524,085 

973,932 

5,003,277 

1,274,511 

5,716,027 

4,473,960 

3,845,500 

1,426,803 

3,130,567 

44,847,420 



Rye. 

bus 



ye, 

■ litis 



17,261 

8,047 

8,066 

1,152 

53,750 

415,073 

475 

226,014 

9,606 

44,268 

229,563 

43,790 

89,137 

3,108 

458,930 

1,608,240 



Barley, 
bushels. 



3,958 

177 

56 

11,501 
95.343 

745 
228 
9,631 
2,735 
4,583 
2.737 
4,776 
25,437 

161,907 



FRKE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 



37 



TABLE NO. V. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 


Buckwheat, 
bushels. 


Beans & Peas, 
bushels. 


Clov. & Grass 
seeds, bush. 




229,297 
184,509 
149,740 

52,516 
104,523 
105,895 
472,917 

65,265 

878,934 

3,183,955 

638,060 

2,193,692 

1,245 

209,819 

79,878 


2,292 

19,090 

82,814 

35,773 

4,475 

205,541 
43,709 
74,254 
70,856 
14,174 

741,546 

60,168 

55,231 

6,846 

104,649 
20,657 






30,469 
17,807 




30,271 




2,438 




18,311 
6.087 

26,274 
8,900 

91,331 
184.715 




Ohio 

Pennsylvania 


140,501 
178,943 




5,036 


Vermont ' 


15,696 




5,486 








8,550,245 


1,542,295 


762,265 



TABLE NO. VI. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 

Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia ........ 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. . 
South Carolina.. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Buckwheat, 
bushels. 



348 
175 
615 

55 
250 
,097 
3 
,671 
121 
641 
704 
283 
,427 

59 



16 

103 

1 

23 

16 

19 

214 



405,357 



Beans & Peas, 
bushels. 

\ 

892,701 

285,738 

4,120 

135,359 

1,142,011 

202,574 

161,732 

12,816 

1,072,757 

46,017 

1,584,252 

1,026,900 

369,321 

179,351 

521,579 

7,637,227 



Clov. & Grass 
seeds, bush. 

685 

526 

3,928 

2 

560 

24,711 

99 

17,778 

617 

4,965 

1,851 

406 

14,214 

10 

53,155 

123,517 



38 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



TABLE NO. VII. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES— 1850 



States. 

California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts... 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania. . . , 
Rhode Island.... 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Flaxseed, 
bushels. 



703 

10,787 

36,888 

1,959 

680 

72 

519 

189 

16,525 

57,963 

188,880 

41,728 

939 
1,191 



Val. of Gar- 
den products. 

$76,276 
196,874 
127 494 
72,864 
8,848 
122,387 
600,020 
14,738 
56,810 
475,242 
912,047 
214,004 
688,714 
98,298 
18,853 
32,142 



Val. of Or- 
chard prod'ts. 

$17,700 

175,118 

446,049 

324,940 

8,434 

342,865 

463,995 

132,650 

248,560 

607,268 

1,701,950 

695,921 

723,389 

63,994 

315,255 

4,823 



TABLE NO. VIII. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES— 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas n 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri.. 

North Carolina 

South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia. 



Flaxseed, 
bushels. 

69 
321 
904 

622 
75,801 

2,446 
26 

13,696 

38,196 
55 

18,904 
26 

52,318 



Val. of Gar- 
den products. 



203,484 



Val. of Or- 
chard prod'ts. 



$84,821 


$15,408 


17,150 


40,141 


12,714 


46,574 


8,721 


1,280 


76,500 


92,776 


303,120 


106,230 


148,329 


22,259 


200,869 


164,051 


46,250 


50,405 


99,454 


514,711 


39,462 


34,348 


47,286 


35.108 


97,183 


52.894 


12,354 


12,505 


183,047 


177,137 



L, 377 ,260 ! $1,355,82'! 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES, 39 



RECAPITULATION FREE STATES. 

Wheat 72,157,486 bush. © 1.50 $108,236 229 

T ° at ? 96,590,371 « - 40 38,63^148 

Indian Corn 242,618,650 " « 60 145 571190 

Potatoes (I. &S.). 59,033,170 " « 38.... 22432604 

R > 7e 12,574,623 " " 1.00 .' .' I2W4V3 

Bar]e y 5,002,013 « " 90 4 501811 

Buckwheat 8,550,245 " " 50 4275122 

Beans&Peas 1,542,295 " " 1.75....... 2|699015 

Clov.& Grass seeds 762,265 « " 3.00 \ 2286795 

Flaxseeds 358,923 " « 1.26......] "448647 

Garden Products.. 
Orchard Products. 



3,714,605 
6,332,914 



Tota1 ' 499,190,041 bushels, valued as above, at $351,709,703 

RECAPITULATION SLAVE STATES. 

Whcat - 27,904,476 bush. ® 1.50 $41,856 714 

? a *?--; 49,882,799 « « 40 19,963,191 

Indian Corn 348,992,282 " >< 60 209 395 369 

Potatoes (I. & S.). 44,847,420 " « 38 17W019 

R J' e 1,608,240 « « 1.00 1008^40 

Barle y 161,907 << « 90 '145 716 

Buckwheat 405,357 " « 50 202*678 

Beans&Peas 7,637,227 " « 1.75.... 13 36s'l47 

Clov. & Grass seeds 123,517 " << 3.00 '370551 

FlaxSeeds 203,484 « « 1.25 254*355 

Garden Products.. , Q77 ' orn 

n v j ■« j M< ',260 

Orchard Products. 1 °55 8^7 



Total 481,766,889 bushels, valued as above, at $306,927,067 

TOTAL DIFFERENCE— BUSHEL-MEASURE PRODUCTS. 

Bushels. Value 

Jr* 8 !?! 8 499,190,041 $351,709,703 

Slave States 481,766,889. 306,927,067 



Balance in busbels. . . 17,423,152 Difference in value. . . $44,782,636 



4 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

So much for the boasted agricultural superiority of the 
South ! Mark well the balance "in bushels, and the differ- 
ence in value ! Is either in favor of the South ? No ! 
Are both in favor of the North? Yes ! Here we have 
unquestionable proof that of all the bushel-measure pro 
ducts of the nation, the free states produce far more than 
one-half; and it is worthy of particular mention, that the 
excess of Northern products is of the most valuable kind. The 
account shows abalance against the South, in favor of the 
North of seventeen million four hundred and twenty-three thou- 
sand one hundred and fifty-two bushels, and a difference m 
value of forty-four million seven hundred and eighty-two thou- 
sand six hundred and thirty-six dollars. Please bear these 
facts in mind, for, in order to show positively how the free 
and slave States do stand upon the great and important 
subject of rural economy, we intend to take an account of 
all the other products of the soil, of the live-stock upon 
farms, of the animals slaughtered, and, in fact, of every 
item of husbandry of the two sections ; and if, in bringing 
our tabular exercises to a close, we find slavery gaining 
upon freedom— a thing it has never yet been known to do 
— we shall, as a matter of course, see that the above 
amount is transferred to the credit of the side to which it 
of right belongs. 

In making up these tables we have two objects in view ; 
the first is to open the eyes of the non-slaveholders of the 
South, to the system of deception, that has so long been 
practiced upon them, and the second is to show slave- 
holders themselves— we have reference only to those who 
are not too perverse, or ignorant, to perceive naked truths 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES * 41 

— that free labor is far more respectable, profitable, and 
productive, than slave labor. In the South, unfortunately, 
no kind of labor is either free or respectable. Every white 
man who is under the necessity of earning his bread, by 
the sweat of his brow, or by manual labor, in any capaci- 
ty, no matter how unassuming in deportment, or exem- 
plary in morals, is treated as if he was a loathsome beast, 
and shunned with the utmost disdain. His soul may be 
the very seat of honor and integrity, yet without slaves — 
himself a slave — he is accounted as nobody, and would 
be deemed intolerably presumptuous, if he dared to open 
his mouth, even so wide as to give faint utterance to a 
three-lettered monosyllable, like yea or nay, in the pres- 
ence of an august knight of the whip and the lash. 

There are few Southerners who will not be astonished 
at the disclosures of these statistical comparisons, be- 
tween the free and the slave States. That the astonish- 
ment of the more intelligent and patriotic non-slaveholders 
will be mingled with indignation, is no more than we an- 
ticipate. We confess our own surprise, and deep chagrin, 
at the result of our investigations. Until we examined 
into the matter, we thought and hoped the South was 
really ahead of the North in one particular, that of agri- 
culture ; but our thoughts have been changed, and our 
hopes frustrated, for instead of finding ourselves the pos- 
sessors of a single advantage, we behold our dear native 
South stripped of every laurel, and sinking deeper and 
deeper in the depths of poverty and shame ; while, at the 
same time, we see the North, our successful rival, extract- 
! ing and absorbing the few elements of wealth yet remain- 



42 * COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

ing amongst us, and rising higher and higher in the scale 
of fame, fortune, and invulnerable power. Thus our dis- 
appointment gives way to a feeling of intense mortifica- 
tion, and our soul involuntarily, hut justly, we believe, 
cries out for retribution against the treacherous, slave- 
driving legislators, who have so basely and unpatriotically 
neglected the interests of their poor white constituents and 
bargained away the rights of posterity. Notwithstand- 
ing the fact that the white non-slaveholders of the South, 
are in the majority, as five to one, they have never yet 
had any part or lot in framing the laws under which they 
live. There is no legislation except for the benefit of slave- 
ry, and slaveholders. As a general rule, poor white per- 
sons are regarded with less esteem and attention than 
negroes, and though the condition of the latter is wretch- 
ed beyond description, vast numbers of the former are in- 
finitely worse off. A cunningly devised mockery of free- 
dom is guarantied to them, and that is all. To all intents 
and purposes they are disfranchised, and outlawed, and 
the only privilege extended to them, is a shallow and- cir- 
cumscribed participation in the political movements that 
usher slaveholders into office. 

We have not breathed away seven and twenty years in 
the South, without becoming acquainted with the dema- 
gogical manceuverings of the oligarchy. Their intrigues 
and tricks of legerdemain are as familiar to us as house- 
hold words ; in vain might the world be ransacked for a 
more precious junto of flatterers and cajolers. It is amus- 
ing to ignorance, amazing to credulity, and insulting to 
intelligence, to hear them in their blattering efforts to mys- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 43 

tify and pervert the sacred principles of liberty, and turn 
the curse of slavery into a blessing. To the illiterate 
poor whites — made poor and ignorant by the system of 
slavery — they hold out the idea that slavery is the very 
bulwark of our liberties, and the foundation of American 
independence ! For hours at a time, day after day, will 
they expatiate upon the inexpressible beauties and excel- 
lencies of this great, free and independent nation ; and final- 
ly, with the most extravagant gesticulations and rhetori- 
cal flourishes, conclude their nonsensical ravings, by at- 
tributing all the glory and prosperity of the country, from 
\ Maine to Texas, and from Georgia to California, to the 
" invaluable institutions of the South !" With what pa- 
tience we could command, we have frequently listened to 
the incoherent and truth-murdering declamations of these 
champions of slavery, and, in the absence of a more poli- 
tic method of giving vent to our disgust and indignation, 
have involuntarily bit our lips into blisters. 

The lords of the lash are not only absolute masters of 
the blacks, who are bought and sold, and driven about 
like so many cattle, but they are also the oracles and ar- 
biters of all non-slaveholding whites, whose freedom is 
merely nominal, and whose unparalleled illiteracy and de- 
gradation is purposely and fiendishly perpetuated. How 
little the " poor white trash," the great majority of the 
Southern people, know of the real condition of the country 
is, indeed, sadly astonishing. The truth is, they know 
nothing of public measures, and little of private affairs, 
except what their imperious masters, the slave-drivers, 
condescend to tell, and that is but precious little, and 



44 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

even that little, always garbled and one-sided, is never 
told except in public harangues ; for tlie haughty cava- 
liers of shackles and handcuifs will not degrade them- 
selves by holding private converse with those who have 
neither dimes nor hereditary rights in human flesh. 

Whenever it pleases, and to the extent it pleases, a 
slaveholder to become communicative, poor whites may 
hear with fear and trembling, but not speak. They must 
be as mum as dumb brutes, and stand in awe of their au- 
gust superiors, or be crushed with stern rebukes, cruel 
oppressions, or downright violence. If they dare to think 
for themselves, their thoughts must be forever concealed. 
The expression of any sentiment at all conflicting with 
the gospel of slavery, dooms them at once in the commu- 
nity in which they live, and then, whether willing or un- 
willing, they are obliged to become heroes, martyrs, or 
exiles. They may thirst for knowledge, but there is no 
Moses among them to smite it out of the rocks of Horeb. 
The black veil, through whose almost impenetrable meshes 
light seldom gleams, has long been pendent over their 
eyes, and there, with fiendish jealousy, the slave-driving 
ruffians sedulously guard it. Non-slaveholders are not 
only kept in ignorance of what is transpiring at the North, 
but they are continually misinformed of what is going on 
even in the South. Never were the poorer classes of 
a people, and those classes so largely in the majority, and 
all Inhabiting the same country, so basely duped, so 
adroitly swindled, or so damnably outraged. 

It is expected that the stupid and sequacious masses, 
the white victims of slavery, will believe, and, as a gen- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 45 

eral thing, they do believe, whatever the slaveholders 
tell them ; and thus it is that they are cajoled into the no- 
tion that they are the freest, happiest and most intelligent 
people in the world, and are taught to look with prejudice 
and disapprobation upon every new principle or progres- 
sive movement. Thus it is that the South, woefully inert 
and inventionless, has lagged behind the North, and is 
now weltering in the cesspool of ignorance and degra- 
dation. 

We have already intimated that the opinion is preva- 
lent throughout the South that the free States are quite 
sterile and unproductive, and that they are mainly depen- 
dent on us for breadstuffs and other provisions. So far 
I as the cereals, fruits, garden vegetables and esculent 
roots are concerned, we have, in the preceding tables, 
shown the utter falsity of this opinion ; and we now pro- 
pose to show that it is equally erroneous in other parti- 
culars, and very far from the truth in the general reckon- 
ing. We can prove, and we intend to prove, from facts 
in our possession, that the hay crop of the free States is 
worth considerably more in dollars and cents than all the 
cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the fifteen 
[slave States. This statement may strike some of our 
[readers with amazement, and others may, for the moment, 
regard it as quite incredible ; but it is true, nevertheless, 
and we shall soon proceed to confirm it. The single free 
State of New- York produces more than three times the quan- 
tity of hay that is produced in all the slave States. Ohio 
produces a larger number of tons than all the Southern and 
Southwestern States, and so does Pennsylvania. Vermont, 



46 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

little and unpretending as she is, does the same thing, 
with the exception of Virginia. Look at the facts as pre- 
sented in the tables, and let your own eves, physical and 
intellectual, confirm you in the truth. 

And yet, forsooth, the slave-driving oligarchy would 
whip us into the belief that agriculture is not one of the 
leading and lucrative pursuits of the free States, that the 
soil there is an uninterrupted barren waste, and that our 
Northern brethren, having the advantage in nothing ex- 
cept wealth, population, inland and foreign commerce, 
manufactures, mechanism, inventions, literature, the arts 
and sciences, and their concomitant branches of profitable 
industry, — miserable objects of charity— are dependent on 
us for the necessaries of life. 

Next to Virginia, Maryland is the greatest Southern 
hay-producing State ; and yet, it is the opinion of several 
of the most extensive hay and grain dealers in Baltimore, 
with whom we have conversed on the subject, that the do- 
mestic crop is scarcely equal to one-third the demand, 
and that the balance required for home consumption, about 
two-thirds, is chiefly brought from New-York, Pennsylva- 
nia and Massachusetts. At this rate, Maryland receives 
and consumes not less than three hundred and fifteen 
thousand tons of Northern hay every year ; and this, as 
we are informed by the dealers above-mentioned, at an 
average cost to the last purchaser, by the time it is stow- 
ed in the mow, of at least twenty-five dollars per ton ; it 
would thus appear that this most popular and valuable 
provender, one of the staple commodities of the North, 
commands a market in a single slave State, to the amount 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 47 

of seven million eight hundred and seventy-five thousand 
dollars per annum. 

In this same State of Maryland, less than one million of 
dollar's worth of cotton finds a market, the whole number 
of bales sold here in 1850 amounting to only twenty-three 
thousand three hundred and twentynfive, valued at seven 
hundred and forty-six thousand four hundred dollars. 
Briefly, then, and in round numbers, we may state the case 
thus : Maryland buys annually seven millions of dollars 
worth of hay from the North, and one million of dollars 
worth of cotton from the South. Let slaveholders and 
their fawning defenders read, ponder and compare. 

The exact quantities of Northern hay, rye, and buck- 
wheat flour, Irish potatoes, fruits, clover and grass seeds, 
and other products of the soil, received and consumed in all 
the slaveholding States, we have no means of ascertaining; 
but for all practical purposes, we can arrive sufficiently 
near to the amount by inference from the above data, and 
from what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears 
wherever we go. Food from the North for man or for 
beast, or for both, is for sale in every market in the South. 
Even in the most insignificant little villages in the inte- 
rior of the slave States, where books, newspapers and 
other mediums of intelligence are unknown, where the 
poor whites and the negroes are alike bowed down in 
heathenish ignorance and barbarism, and where the news 
is received but once a week, and then only in a Northern- 
built stage-coach, drawn by horses in Northern harness, 
in charge of a driver dressed cap-cirpie in Northern habili- 
ments, and with a Northern whip in his hand, — the agri- 



48 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

cultural products of the North, either crude, prepared, 
pickled or preserved, are ever to be found. 

Mortifying as the acknowledgment of the fact is to us, , 
it is our unbiased opinion — an opinion which will, we be- 
lieve, be endorsed by every intelligent person who goes 3 
into a careful examination and comparison of all the facts i 
in the case — that the profits arising to the North from the 
sale of provender and provisions to the South, are far • 
greater than those arising to the South from the sale of f, 
cotton, tobacco and breadstuffs to the North. It follows, 
then, that the agricultural interests of the North being 
not only equal but actually superior to those of the South, , 
the hundreds of millions of dollars which the commerce 
and manufactures of the former annually yield, is just so 
much clear and independent gain over the latter. It fol- 
lows, also, from a corresponding train or system of deduc- 
tion, and with all the foregoing facts in view, that the dif- 
ference between freedom and slavery is simply the dif- 
ference between sense and nonsense, wisdom and folly, 
good and evil, right and wrong. 

Any observant American, from whatever point of the 
compass he may hail, who will take the trouble to pass i 
through the Southern markets, both great and small, as 
we have done, and inquire where this article, that and I 
the other came from, will be utterly astonished at the va- 
riety and quantity of Northern agricultural productions 
kept for sale. And this state of things is growing worse 
and worse every year. Exclusively agricultural as the 
South is in her industrial pursuits, she is barely able to 
support her sparse and degenerate population. Her men 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 49 

and her domestic animals, both dwarfed into shabby ob- 
jects of commiseration under the blighting effects of sla- 
very, are constantly feeding on the multifarious products 
of Northern soil. And if the whole truth must be told, we 
may here add, that these products, like all other articles 
of merchandize purchased at the North, are generally 
bought on a credit, and, in a great number of instances, 
by far too many, never paid for — not, as a general rule, 
because the purchasers are dishonest or unwilling to pay, 
but because they are impoverished and depressed by the 
retrogressive and deadening operations of slavery, that 
most unprofitable and pernicious institution under which 
they live. 

To show how well we are sustained in our remarks up- 
on hay and other special products of the soil, as well as 
to give circulation to other facts of equal significance, 
we quote a single passage from an address by Paul C. 
Cameron, before the Agricultural Society of Orange County, 
North Carolina. This production is, in the main, so pow- 
erfully conceived, so correct and plausible in its state- 
ments and conclusions, and so well calculated, though, 
perhaps, not intended, to arouse the old North State to a 
sense of her natural greatness and acquired shame, that 
we could wish to see it published in pamphlet form, and 
circulated throughout the length and breadth of that un- 
fortunate and degraded heritage of slavery. Mr. Came- 
ron says : 

" I know not when I have been more humiliated, as a 

North Carolina farmer, than when, a few weeks ago, at a 

railroad depot at the very doors of our State capital, I saw 

3 



50 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

wagons drawn by Kentucky mules, loading with Northern 
hay, for the supply not only of the town, but to be taken 
to the country. Such a sight at the capital of a State 
whose population is almost exclusively devoted to agri- 
culture, is a most humiliating exhibition. Let us cease to 
use every thing, as far as it is practicable, that is not the 
product of our own soil and workshops— nol an axe, or a 
broom, or bucket, from Connecticut, By every consider- 
ation of self-preservation, we are dalled to make better 
efforts to expel the Northern grocer from the State with 
his butter, and the Ohio and Kentucky horse, mule and 
hog driver, from our county at least. It is a reproach on 
us as farmers, and no little deduction from our wealth, 
that we suffer the population of our towns and villa 
to supply themselves with butter f ther Orange 

County in New-York." 

We have promised to prove that the hay crop of thi 
states is worth considerably more than all the 
tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the fifteen slave 
States. The compilers of the la we learn : 

Prof. De Bow, the able and courteous superintendent, in 
making up the hay-tables, allowed two thousand two hun- 
dred and forty pounds to the ton.^ The price per ton at 
which we should estimate its value has puzzled us to some 
extent. Dealers in the article in Baltimore think it will 
average twenty-five dollars, in their market. Four or five 
months ago they sold it at thirty dollars per ton. At the 
very time we write, though there is less activity in the 
article than usual, we learn, from an examination of sundry 
prices-current and commercial journals, that hay is selling 



FREE AXD THE SLAVE STATES. 61 

in Savannah at $33 per ton ; in Mobile and New Orleans 
at $26 ; in Charleston at $25 ; in Louisville at $24 ; and 
in Cincinnati at $23. The average of these prices is 
twenty-six dollars sixteen and tico-third cents ; and we suppose 
it would be fair to employ the figures which would indicate 
this amount, the net value of a single ton, in calculating 
the total market value of the entire crop. Were we to do 
this — and, with the foregoing facts in view, we submit to 
intelligent men whether we would not be justifiable in 
doing it,— the hay crop of the free states, 12,090,982 tons, 
in 1850, would amount in valuation to the enormous sum 
of $331,081,695 — more than four times the value of all the 
cotton produced in the United States during the same 
period ! 

But we shall not make the calculation at what we have 
found to be the average value per ton throughout the 
country. What rate, then, shall be agreed upon as a basis 
of comparison between the value of the hay crop of the 
North and that of the South, and as a means of testing the 
truth of our declaration — that the former exceeds the aggre- 
gate values of all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp 
produced in the fifteen slave States ? Suppose we take 
$13,08|— just half the average value— as the multiplier in 
this arithmetical exercise. This we can well afford to do ; 
indeed, we might reduce the amount per ton to much less 
than half the average value, and still have a large margin 
left for triumphant demonstration. It is not our purpose, 
however, to make an overwhelming display of the incom- 
parable greatness of the free States. 

In estimating the value of the various agricultural pro- 



62 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

ducts of the two great sections of the country, we have 
been guided by prices emanating from the Bureau of Agri- 
culture in Washington ; and in a catalogue of th< me \ -rices 
now before us, we perceive that the average value of hay 
throughout the nation is supposed to be not more thau 
half a cent per pound — $11.20 per ton — which, as we have 
seen above, is considerably less than half the prea nl 
market value ; — and this, too, in the face of the fact that 
prices generally rule higher than they do just now. It 
will be admitted on all sides, however, that the prices fixed 
upon by the Bureau of Agriculture, taken as a whole, are 
as fair for one section of the country as for the other, and 
that we cannot blamelessly deviate from them in one par- 
ticular without deviating from them in another. Eleven 
dollars and twenty cents ($11.20) per ton shall therefore 
be the price ; and, notwithstanding these greatly reduced 
figures, we now renew, with an addendum, our declaration 
and promise, that — We can prove, and ice shall now proceed to 
prove, that the annual hay crop of the free States is tcorth consid- 
erably more in dollars and cents than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, 
hay, hemp and cane sugar annually produced in the fifteen slave 
States. 



FREE AND TIIE SLAVE STATES. 53 

HAY CROP OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 

12,690,982 tons a 11,20 $142,138,998 

SUNDRY PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 

Cotton 2,445,779 bales a 32,00 $78,264,028 

Tobacco, 185,023,906 lbs. " 10 18,502,390 

Rice (rough) 215,313 497 lbs. " 4 8,612,539 

Hay 1,137,784 tons " 11,20 12,743,180 

Hcmi> 34,673 tons "112,00 3,883,376 

Cane Sugar 237,133,000 lbs. " 7 16,599,310 



$138,005,723 

RECAPITULATION. 

Hay crop of the free States 8142,138,998 

Sundry products of the slave States 138,005,723 



Balance in favor of the free States .... $8,633,275 

There is the account ; look at it, and let it stand in at- 
testation of the exalted virtues and surpassing powers of 
freedom. Scan it well, Messieuns lords of the lash, and learn 
from it new lessons of the utter inefficiency, and despica- 
ble imhccility of slavery. Examine it minutely, liberty- 
loving patriots of the North, and behold in it additional 
evidences of the beauty, grandeur, and super-excellence 
of free institutions. Treasure it up in your minds, out- 
raged friends and non-slaveholders of the South, and let 
the recollection of it arouse you to an inflexible determina- 
tion to extirpate the monstrous enemy that stalks abroad 
in your land, and to recover the inalienable rights and 
liberties, which have been filched from you by an unprin- 
cipled oligarchy. 

In deference to truth, decency and good sense, it is to 



54 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

be hoped that negro-driving politicians will never more 
have the effrontery to open their mouths in extolling the 
agricultural achiei jofslavelal .. Especially 

desirable, that, as a simple act of justice to a basely de- 
ceived populace, they may stale and 
harangues on the importance of cotton. The value oi 
ton to the South, to the North, to the nati • i the 
world, has been so grossly exaggerated, 
have been the evils-which have resulted in consequ 
of the extraordinary misrepresent at: ruin-- it, that 
we should feel constrained to reproach ourself for ten 
ness of duty, if we failed t^ make an attempt to ex] I 
the popular error. The figures above show what it is, and 
what it is not. Recur to them, and learn the facts. 

So hyperbolically has the importance of cotton been 
magnified by certain pro-slavery politicians of the South, 
that the person who would give credence to all their fus- 
tian and bombast, would be under the necessity of believ- 
ing that the very existence of almost everything, in the 
heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the water un- 
der the earth, depended on it. The truth is, however, that 
the cotton crop is of but little value to the South. N 
England and Old England, by their superior enterprise 
and sagacity, turn it chiefly to their own advantage. It 
is carried in their ships, spun in their factories, woven in 
their looms, insured in their offices, returned again in their 
own vessels, and, with double freight and cost of manu- 
facturing added, purchased by the South at a high premi- 
um. Of all the parties engaged or interested in its trans- 
ports^ ail d manufacture, the South is th« ™l„ 



■.,- <' 



FREE AXD THE SLAVE SKATES. 55 

does not make a profit, Xor does she, as a general thing, 
make a profit by producing it. 

We are credibly informed that many of the farmers in 
immediate vicinity of Baltimore, where we now write, 
have turned their attention exclusively to hay, and that 
from one acre they frequently gather two tons, for which 
they receive fifty dollars. Let us now inquire how many 
dollars may be expected from an acre planted in cotton, 
Mr. Cameron, from whose able addri i./ul- 

tural Society of Orange County, North Carolina, we have 
already gleaned some interesting particulars, informs us, 
that the cotton planters in his part of the country, '' have 

tented themselves with a crop yielding on!.. 
(urlrc dollars per acre," and that " the up of a L 

surface gives hut a living result." An intelligent resident 
of the Palmetto , De B ow s Review, 

not long since, advances the opinion that the cotton 
planters of South Carolina arc not realizing more than one 
per cent, on the amount of capital they have invested. 
While in Virginia, very recently, an elderly slaveholder, 
whose religious walk and conversation had recommended 
and promoted him to an eldership in the Presbyterian 
church, and who supports himself and family by raising 
niggers and tobacco, told us that, for the last eight or ten 
years, aside from the increase of his human chattels, he 
felt quite confident he had not cleared as much even as 
one per cent, per annum on the amount of his investment. 
The real and personal property of this aged Christian con- 
sists chiefly in a large tract of land and about thirty ne- 
groes, most of whom, according to his own confession, are 



56 COMPARISON BETWEEN TUT. 

more expensive than profitable. The pit iceeda arising fr« >m 
the sale of the tobacco they produce, are aE d in 

the purchase of meat and bread for home consumption, 
when the crop is stunted bj drought, frost, or other? 
cut short, one of the negroes must be sold to raise fa 
for the support of the others. Such are the agricultural 
achievements of slave labor ; Bucfa are the results of " tin- 
sum of all villainies.'' The diabolical institution subsi 
on its own flesh. At one time children are sold to pro- 
cure food for the parents, at another, parents It" 
procure food for the children Within its pestilential at- 
mosphere, nothing succeeds ; ] i prospi rity are 
unknown ; inanition and slothfulness ensue ; everytl 
becomes dull, dismal and unprofitable ; wretchedness and 
desolation run riot throughout the land; an aspect of i 
melancholy inactivity and dilapidation I 
city and town; ignori 1 prejudice sit enthroned 
over the minds of the | rarping despots wield the 
sceptre of power ; everywhere, and in everything, between 
Delaware Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, are the multitudin- 
ous evils of slavery apparent 

The soil itself soon sickens and dies beneath the unna- 
tural tread of the slave. Hear what the Hon.0. ('.('lav, of 
Alabama, has to say upon the subject His testimony is 
eminently suggestive, well-timed, and truthful; and we 
heartily commend it to the careful consideration of every 
spirited Southron who loves his country, and desires to 
see it rescued from the fatal grasp of" the mother of har- 
lots :" Says he : 

"I can show you, with sorrow, in the olden porti 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 57 

Alabama, and in my native county of Madison, the sad 
memorials of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton. 
Our small planters, after taking the cream off their lands, 
unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are 
going further AVest and South, in search of other virgin 
lands, which they may and will despoil and impoverish in 
like manner. Our wealthier planters, with greater means 
and do more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbors, 
extending their plantations, and adding to their slave 
The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller 

profits, and to give their blasted fields BOme lest, are thus 

pushing off the many who are merely independent ( H 
$20,000,000 annually i from the sales of the cotton 

crop of Alabama, nearly all not expended in supporting 
the producers, is re-invested in land and negroes. Thus 
the white population has decreased and the slave inert 
ed almost pari pauu in several counties of our State. In 
1825, Madison county casi about 8,000 rotes; now, 
she cannot cast exceeding 2,300. In traversing that 
county, one will discover numerous farm-houses, once the 

abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occu- 
pied by slaves, OT teiiuntless, deserted and dilapidated ; he 

will observe fields, once fertile, nowunfenoed, abandoned, 
and covered with those evil harbingers, fox-tail and broom- 
's ; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering 

walls of once thrifty Tillages, and will find ' one only mas- 
ter grasps the whole domain,' that once furnished happy 
homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country 
in its infancy, where fifty years urce a forest tree 

had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhi- 



58 comparison : m 

biting the painful 
Virginia and the Carolii 

• • one has Baid th it " an i. 
for the Bonl," and If I 
doubi it is, we think Mr. ( i i 

i 
above, b< i 

operations and influent - ; and 

we, as a aatn e of Carolio h Vu> 

ginia, are n ady tob ar testimony to the fitness "I* hi 
marks when he refern 

senility and decay. With equal ; '. lie 

might have stopped nearer hi compa- 

rison; Either of ipon Alabama, or, 

indeed, any other would h i ered his 

purpose quite as well as Virginia ai 
Wherever slavery exists there be may find paralh 
destruction that is sweeping with wily influence 

over his own unfortunal - 

As for examples of \' and thrifty 

communities, they can be found anywl the 

Upas-shadow of slavery — nowh fork and 

Massachusetts, which, by nature, are confessedly far in- 
ferior to Virginia and the Oarolini by them 
liberal and equitable policy which they have pursued, in 
substituting liberty for slavery, attained a degree of emi- 
nence and prosperity altogether unknown in the si: 
States. 

Amidst all the hyperbole and cajolery of slave-driving pol- 
iticians, who, as we have already seen, are ' the books, the 



FREE AXD THE SLAVE STATES. 59 

arts, the academies, that show, contain, and govern all the 
- ;;h,' we are rejoiced to see that Mr. Clay, Mr. Cameron, 
and a few others, have had the boldness and honesty to 
p forward and proclaim the truth. All such frank 
adm re to be hailed as good onu nth. 

Nothing good can come from any attempt to conceal 
onooncealable evidenc 

where trailing in the wake of slavery. truth be 

t .Id i ,1 .,'! ~ ruth, 

and the 

I i inquire 

tnd t" adopt the m 

mannei 

In wilfully traducing and & irthof 

■id Dixon's line, and in i ; tin' 

inij !i of it, tl shy have, 

in ti f all liberal and intelligent men, lean 

exhibit: aon folly and d ;.. For a 

; the 

a huinbi . \ of 

poverty and ignorance, and in instilling into their ontu- 

tored minds ; alated to 

j. str. ad protect thi I institution of slavery ; 

but, thanks I . their in Iraw- 

e ; with irresistible brilliancy, and in spil 
the interdid of tyrants, light from the pure fountain of 
knowledge is now streaming over the dark places of our 
land, and, ere long — mark our words — then- will ascend 
from Delaware, and from Texas, and from all the interme- 
diate States, a huzza for Freedom and for Equal Ri 



gO COMPARISON BETWEEN TTIE 

that wffl utterly confound the friends of despotim, set at 

defiance the authority of osmperi 
to the heart of every idaveiyiwopagaiidist. 
To undeceive the] ' Soath, to brag them 1 

a knowledge of the inferior and diareprtal n which 

they occupy as a componei t1 the Union 

prominence and popularity I '•'. hieh, iff 

will elevate us to an equalitr 'y, morally, intellectu- 

ally, industrially, politically, and financially, with I 
flourishing and refined nati< m in1 : te , 

to place us in the vai. this 

work. Slaveholders, eith- . :lful 

disposition to propagate en 
nothing to be ashamed of, that slavery !. 
ingtoher, and that 1. h iu an 

agricultural | 

a in other i 
that many years of continual blush' 
would not suffice I 
that justly attaches 1 1 the & rath in i 

—the direst evil that i I the land— -f 3 rath 

bears nothing like even a i 

North in navigation, cominerc ^nd that, 

contrary to the opinion enter hun- 

dredths of her peopl< . a behind the free S 

the only thing of which she has ever da: 
culture. We submit the qui • the arbitral* 

figures, which, it is said, do not lie. With i the 

bushel-measure products of the soil, of which 
already taken an inventory, we have seen that t. 



FREE AXD TIIE SLAVE STATES. 61 

balance against the South in favor of the Xorth of imrwfam 
million four hundred and twenty-three thousand one hundred and 
fift ij-t ico bushels, and a difference in the value of the same, 
also in favor of the Xorth, of fort y-J bur million seven hundred 
and eighty-two thousand six hundred and thirty-six dollars. It 
is certainly a most novel kind of agricultural superiority 
that the South claims on that score ! 

Our attention shall now be directed to the twelve prin- 
cipal pound-measure products of the free and of the slave 
tea— hay, cotton, butter and ch .eeo, cane, su- 

gar, wool, rice, hemp, maple sugar, beeswax and h 
ilax, and hope — and in taking an account of them, we 
shall, in order to Bhow the exact quantity produced in 
each State, and for the convenience of fatal 
pursue thi plan as that adopted in the preceding 

tables. Whether slavery will appear to better advanl 
on the Bcalee than it did in the half-bushel, remains to be 
seen. It is possible that the rickety monster may make a 
l ' ett track ; if it makes a more ridiculous 

display, we shall not be surprised A careful examina- 
tion of its precedents, has taught us the folly 
anything good to issue from it in any manner whatever. 
It has no disposition to emulate the magnanimity of its 
1 tters, and as for a laudable ambiti . 1. thai i 

characteristic alt' reign to its nature. Langv 

and inertia are the insalntary viands upon which it 
lights to satiate its morbid appetite; and "from bad to 
a the ill-omened motto under which, in all its 
Sorts and achievements, it ekes .ait a most miserable 
and ' ag existei 



62 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



TABLE NO. IX. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OP THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania. . . 
Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Hay, tons. 


Homp, tons. 


Hops, lbs. 


2,038 






516,131 




554 


601,952 




3,551 


403,230 




92,796 


89,055 




8,242 


755,889 




40,120 


651,807 




121,595 


404,934 




10,063 


598,854 




257,174 


435,950 




2,133 


3,728,797 


4 


2,536,299 


1,443,142 


150 


63,731 


1,842,970 


44 


22,088 


74,418 




277 


866,153 




288,023 


275,662 




15,930 


12,690,982 


198 


3,463,176 



TABLE NO. X. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OP THE SLAVE STATES 1850? 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Hay, tons. 



32, 
3. 

30 : 

2. 

23, 
113. 

25! 
157. 

12. 
116. 
145. 

20! 

74 

8, 

369. 



685 
976 
159 
510 
449 
747 
752 
956 
504 
925 
653 
925 
091 
354 
098 



1,137,784 



nemp, tons. 



15 



17,7S7 

63 

7 

16,028 

39 

595 

139 

34,673 



Hops, lbs. 

276 

157 

348 

14 

261 

4,309 

125 

1,870 

473 

4,130 

9,246 

26 

1,032 

7 

11,500 

33,780 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 

TABLE NO. XI. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE FREE STATES 1850. 



63 



States. 


Flax, 

lbs. 


Maple Sugar, 
lbs. 


Tobacco, 
lbs. 




17,928 

160,063 

584,469 

62,660 

17,081 

1,162 

7,152 

7,652 

182,965 

940,577 

446,932 

530,307 

85 

20,852 

68,393 


50,796 

248,904 

2,921,192 

78,407 

93,542 

795,525 

2.439,794 

1,298,863 

2,197 

10,357,484 

4,588,209 

2,326,525 

28 

6,349,357 

610,976 


1,000 

1,267,624 

841,394 

1,044 620 

6,041 


Maine. . „ 


Michigan 


138,246 
1 245 


New Hampshire 


50 


New York 


310 

83,189 

10,454,449 

912,651 


Ohio 


Rhode Island 




1,268 






3,048,278 


32,161,799 


14,752,087 



TABLE NO. XII. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

' Arkansas 

Delaware 

> Florida 

Georgia 

; Kentucky 

: Louisiana 

'. Maryland 

: Mississippi.. . . 

Missouri.. 

; North Carolina. 

South Carolina. 
: Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Flax, 


Maple Sugar, 


Tobacco, 


lbs. 


lbs. 


lbs. 


3,921 


643 


164,990 


12,291 


9,330 


218,936 


17,174 


i 




50 




998,614 


5,387 


50 


423,924 


2,100,116 


437,405 


55,501,196 




255 


26,878 


35,686 


47,740 


21,407,497 


665 




49,960 


627,160 


178,910 


17,113,784 


593,796 


27,932 


11,984,786 


333 


200 


74,285 


368,131 


158,557 


20,148,932 


1,048' 




66,897 


1,000,450 


1,227,665 


56,803,227 


4,7,66,198 


2,088,687 


185,023,906 



64 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



TABLE NO. XIII. 

ANIMAL PRODUCTS OP THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.. . 
lihode Island.. . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Wool, 


Butter and 


Beeswax and i 


lbs. 


Cheese, Jbs. 


Honey, lbs. 


5,520 


855 




497,454 


11,861,396 


93,304 1 


2,150,113 


13,804,768 


869,444 [ 


2,610,287 


13,506,099 


935,329 ) 


373,898 


2,381,028 


321,711,1 


1,364,034 


11,678,265 


189,618 i 


585,136 


15,159,512 


59,508 


2,043,283 


8,077,390 


359,232 I 


1,108,476 


10,173,619 


117,140 


375,396 


9,852,966 


156,694 1 


10,071,301 


129,507,507 


1,755,830 


10,196,371 


55,208,921 


804,275 


4,481,570 


42,383,452 


839,509 


129,692 


1,312,178 


6,347 


3,400,717 


20,858,814 


249,422 


253,963 


4,034,033 

349,860,783 


131,005 


39,647,211 


6,8S8,368 



TABLE NO. XVI. 

ANIMAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 


Wool, 

lbs. 


Butter and 
Cheese, lbs. 


Beeswax and 
Honey, lbs. 




657,118 

182,595 

57,768 

23,247 

990,019 

2,297,433 
109,897 
477,438 
559,619 

1,627.164 
970,738 
487,233 

1,364,378 
131,917 

2,860,765 


4,040,223 
1,884,327 
1,058,495 
389,513 
4,687,535 

10,161,477 
685,026 
3,810,135 
4,367,425 
8,037,931 
4,242,211 
2,986,820 
8,317,266 
2,440,199 

11,525,051 

68,634,224 


897,021 

192,338 

41,248 




18,971 




732,514 




1,158,019 . 
96,701 1 




74,802 . 
397,460 

1,328,972 




512,289 
216,281 




1,030,572 


Texas 


380 825 




880,767 








12,797,329 


7,964,760 



FREE AND TIIE SLAVE STATES. 



65 



TABLE NO. XV. 

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 


Cotton, bales 
of 400 lbs. 


Cane Sugar, 
hhds. 1000 lbs. 


Rough Rice, 
lbs. 




564,429 
65,844 

45,131 

499,091 

758 

178,737 

484,292 

50,545 
300,901 
194,532 

58,072 
3,947 


87 

2,750 

846 

10 

226,001 

8 

77 

3 

7,351 


2,312,252 
63,179 


Georgia 


1,075,090 
88 950 691 


Louisiana 


5,688 
4 425,349 


Missouri 


2,719,856 
700 


North Carolina 


5,465,868 




159,930,613 

258,854 

88,203 

17,154 








2,445,779 


237,133 


215,313,497 



RECAHTULATION FREE STATES. 



Hay 28,427,799,680 lbs. 

Hemp 443,520 " 

Hops 3,463,176 " 

Flax 3,048,278 " 

Maple Sugar 32,161,799 " 

Tobacco 14,752,087 'I 

Wool 39,647,211 " 

Butter and Cheese... 349,860,783 " 

Beeswax and Honey.. 6,888,368 " 



3 1-2 c. 


$142,138,998 


" 5 " 


22,176 


' 15 " 


519,476 


' 10" 


304,827 


8" 


2,572,943 


' 10" 


1,475,208 


' 35 " 


13,876,523 


' 15" 


52,479,117 


' 15" 


1,033,255 



Total, 28,878,064,902 lbs, valued as above, $ 214,422,523 



66 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



RECAPITULATION SLAVE STATES. 

Hay 2,548,636,160 lbs. (a) 

Hemp 77,667,520 " " 

Hops 33,780 " " 

Flax 4,766,198 " " 

Maple Sugar 2,088,687 " " 

Tobacco 185,023,906 " " 

Wool 12,797,329 " " 

Butter and Cheese 68,634,224 " " 

Beeswax and Houey 7,964,760 " " 

Cotton 978,311,600 " " 

Cane Sugar 237,133,000 " " 

Rice (rough) 215,313,497 " " 



1-2 c. 


..$12,743,180 


5 " .. 


3,883,376 


15 " .. 


5,067 


10 


476,619 


8 " .. 


167,094 


10 


....18,502,390 


35 " ,. 


4,479,065 


15 " .. 


....10,295,133 


15 " . 


1,194,714 


8 " . 


78,264,928 


7 <: . 


....16,599,310 


4 '■■ .. 


8,612,539 



Total 4,338,370,661 lbs. valued as above, at $155,223,415 

TOTAL DIFFERENCE POUND-MEASURE PRODUCTS. 

Pounds. Value. 

Free States 28,878,064,902 $214,422,523 

Slave States 4,338,370,661 155,223,415 



Balance in pounds, 24,539,694,241 Difference in value, $59,199,108 
Both quantity and value again in favor of the North ! 
Behold also the enormousness of the difference ! In this 
comparison with the South, neither hundreds, thousands, 
nor millions, according to the regular method of computa- 
tion, are sufficient to exhibit the excess of the pound- 
measure products of the North. Becourse must be had to 
an almost inconceivable number ; billions must be called 
into play ; and there are the figures telling us, with un- 
mistakable emphasis and distinctness, that, in this depart- 
ment of agriculture, as in every other, the North is vastly 
the superior of the South — the figures showing a total 
balance in favor of the former of twmty-four billion five hun- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 61 

dred and thirty-nine million six hundred and ninety-four thousand 
two hundred and forty-one pounds, valued at fifty-nine million 
one hundred and ninety-nine thousand one hundred and eight 
dollars. And yet, the North is a poor, God-forsaken coun- 
try, bleak, inhospitable, and unproductive ! 

What next ? Is it necessary to adduce other facts in 
order to prove that the rural wealth of the free States is 
| far greater than that of the slave States ? Shall we make 
a further demonstration of the fertility of northern soil, or 
bring forward new evidences of the inefficient and desola- 
ting system of terra-culture in the South ? Will nothing 
less than " confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ," 
suffice to convince the South that she is standing in her 
own light, and ruining both body and soul by the reten- 
tion of slavery ? Whatever duty and expedience require 
to be done, we are willing" to do. Additional proofs are at 
hand. Slaveholders and slave-breeders shall be convinced, 
confuted, convicted, and converted. They shall, in their 
hearts and consciences, if not with their tongues and 
pens, bear testimony to the triumphant achievements of 
free labor. In the two tables which immediately follow 
these remarks, they shall see how much more vigorous 
and fruitful the soil is when under the prudent manage- 
ment of free white husbandmen, than it is when under the 
rude and nature-murdering tillage of enslaved negroes ; 
and in two subsequent tables they shall find that the live 
stock, slaughtered animals, farms, and farming implements 
and machinery, in the free States, are worth at least one 
thousand million of dollars more than the market value of 
the same in the slave States ! In the face, however, of all 



68 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

these most significant and incontrovertible facts, the oli- 
garchy have the unparalleled audacity to tell us that the 
South is the greatest agricultural country in the world, 
and that the North is a dreary waste, unfit for cultivation, 
and quite dependent on us for the necessaries of life. How 
preposterously false all such babble is, the following 
tables will show : — 






FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 



69 



TABLE NO: XVI. 

ACTUAL CEOrS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN THE FREE 
STATES 1850. 



States. 


Wheat, 


Oats, 


Rye. 


Ind. Corn, 


Irish Pota- 


bushels. 


bushels. 


bushels. 


bushels. 


toes, bush. 






21 




40 


85 




11 
12 


29 
20 


14 

18 


33 
33 


115 




100 




14 
10 
16 


36 
26 


13 


32 
27 
31 


100 




120 


Massachusetts. . . . 


170 




10 


26 




32 


140 


New Hampshire. . . 


11 


30 




30 


220 




11 


26 




33 






12 


25 


17 


27 


100 


Ohio 


12 


21 


25 


36 






15 






20 


75 






30 






100 




13 




20 


32 


178 




14 


35 




30 




161 


325 


107 


436 


1,503 



TABLE NO. XVII. 

ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE AVERAGE IN THE SLAVE 
STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi. 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas , 

Virginia 



Wheat, 


Oats, 


Rye, 


Ind. Corn, 


Irish Pota- 


bushels. 


bushels. 


bushels. 


bushels. 


toes, bush. 


5 


12 

18 




15 
22 


60 


11 


20 




20 




15 








175 


5 


18 


7 


16 


125 


8 


18 


11 


24 
16 


130 


13 


21 


18 


23 


75 


9 


12 




18 


105 


11 


26 




34 


110 


T 


10 


15 17 


65 


8 


12 


11 


70 


7 


19 


7| 21 


120 


15 




20 


250 


7 


13 


5 18 


75 


121 


199 


63 


275 


1,360 



70 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



RECAPITULATION OF ACTUAL CROPS PER ACRE ON THE 
AVERAGE 1850. 



FREE STATES. 

Wheat 12 bushels per acre. 

Oats 27 

Eye 18 

Indian Corn 31 " " 

Irish Potatoes 125 " " 



SLAVE STATES. 

Wheat 9 bushels per acre. 

Oats 17 

Rye 11 

Indian Corn. 20 " " 

Irish Potatoes 113 " " 



What an obvious contrast between the vigor of Liberty 
and the impotence of Slavery! What an unanswerable 
argument in favor of free labor 1 Add up the two columns 
of figures above, and what is the result ? Two hundred 
and thirteen bushels as the products .f five acres in the 
North, and only one hundred and seventy bushels as the 
products of five acres in the South. Look at each item 
separately, and you will find that the average crop per 
acre of every article enumerated is greater in the free 
States than it is in the slave States. Examine the table 
at large, and you will perceive that while Massachusetts 
produces sixteen bushels of wheat to the acre, Virginia 
produces only seven ; that Pennsylvania produces fifteen 
and Georgia only five : that while Iowa produces thirty- 
six bushels of oats to the acre, Mississippi produces only 
twelve ; that Rhode Island produces thirty, and North Ca- 
rolina only ten : that while Ohio produces twenty-five 
bushels of rye to the acre, Kentucky produces only eleven; 
that Vermont produces twenty, and Tennessee only seven: 
that while Connecticut produces forty bushels of Indian 
corn to the acre, Texas produces only twenty ; that New 
Jersey produces thirty-three, and South Carolina only 
eleven : that while New Hampshire produces two hundred 
and twenty bushels of Irish potatoes to the acre, Maryland 
produces only seventy-five ; that Michigan produces one 
hundred and forty, and Alabama only sixty. Now for 
other beauties of slavery in another table. 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 



u 



TABLE NO. XVIII. 

VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN THE FREE STATES 
—1850. 



States. 



\ California 

Connecticut 

j! Illinois 

: Indiana 

i; Iowa 

\ Maine 

; Massachusetts. . 
; Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

I New Jersey 

(New York 

! Ohio 

| Pennsylvania . . . 
: Rhode Island.. . 

: Vermont 

: Wisconsin 



Value of 


Val. of Animals 


Live Stock. 


Slaughtered. 


$3,351,058 


$107,173 


7,467,490 


2,202,266 


24,209,258 


4,972,286 


22,478,555 


6,567,935 


3,689,275 


821.164 


9,705,726 


1,646,773 


9,647,710 


2,500,924 


8,008,734 


1,328,327 


8,871,901 


1,522,873 


10,679,291 


2,638,552 


73,570,499 


13,573,883 


44,121,741 


7,439,243 


41,500,053 


8,219,848 


1,532,637 


667,486 


12,643,228 


1,861,336 


4,897,385 


920,178 


8286,376,541 


$56,990,237 



Cash Val. of Farms, 
Farm. Imp. &. Mac. 

$3,977,524 

74,618.963 

102,538,851 

143,089,617 

17,830,436 

57,146,305 

112,285,931 

54,703,817 

57,560,122 

124,663,014 

576,631,568 

371,509,188 

422,598,640 

17,568,003 

66,106,509 

30,170,131 



$2,233,058,619 



TABLE NO. XIX. 

VALUE OF FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS IN THE SLAVE STATES 
—1850. 




72 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

RECAPITULATION FREE STATES. 

Value of live Stock $286,376,541 

Value of Animals slaughtered, 66,990,237 

Value of Farms, Farming-Implements and Machinery, 2,233,058,619 

$2,576,425,397 

RECAPITULATION SLAVE STATES. 

Value of Live Stock $253,723,687 

Value of Animals slaughtered 54,388,377 

Value of Farms, Farming Implements and Machinery, 1,183,995,274 

$1,492,107,338 

DIFFERENCE IN VALUE — FARMS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 

Free States, $2,676,425,397 

Slave States 1,492,107,338 

Balance in favor of the Free States $1,084,318,059 

By adding to this last balance in favor of the free States 
the differences in value which we found in their favor in 
our account of the bushel-and-pound-nieasure products, we 
shall have a very correct idea of the extent to which the 
undivided agricultural interests of the free States prepon- 
derate over those of the slave States. Let us add the dif- 
ferences together, and see what will be the result. 

BALANCE ALL IN FAVOR OF THE NORTH. 

Difference in the value of hushel-measure products. . $44,782,636 
Difference in tho value of pound-measure products. . 59,199,108 
Difference in the value of farms and domestic animals 1,084,318,059 

Total $1,188,299,803 

No figures of rhetoric can add emphasis or significance 
to these figures of arithmetic. They demonstrate conclu- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 73 

sively the great moral triumph of Liberty over Slavery. 
They show unequivocally, in spite of all the blarney and 
boasting of slave-driving politicians, that the entire value 
of all the agricultural interests of the free States is very 
nearly twice as great as the entire value of all the agricul- 
tural interests of the slave States — the value of those in- 
terests in the former being twenty-five hundred million of 
dollars, that of those in the latter only fourteen hundred 
million, leaving a balance in favor of the free States of 
one billion one hundred and eighty-eight million two hundred and 
ninety-nine thousand eight hundred and three dollars ! That is 
what we call a full, fair and complete vindication of Free 
Labor. Would we not be correct iu calling it a total 
eclipse of the Black Orb ? Can it be possible that the 
slavocracy will ever have the hardihood to open their 
mouths again on the subject of terra-culture in the South ? 
Dare they ever think of cotton again ? Ought they not, 
as a befitting confession of their crimes and misdemeanors, 
and as a reasonable expiation for the countless evils which 
they have inflicted on society, to clothe themselves in 
sackcloth, and, after a suitable season of contrition and 
severe penance, follow the example of one Judas Iscariot, 
and go and hang themselves ? 

It will be observed that we have omitted the Territories 
and the District of Columbia in all the preceding tables. 
We did this purposely. Our object was to draw an equi- 
table comparison between the value of free and slave labor 
in the thirty-one sovereign States, where the two systems, 
comparatively unaffected by the wrangling of politicians, 

and, as a matter of course, free from the interference of 

4 



14 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

the general government, have had the fullest opportunities 
to exert their influence, to exhibit their virtues, and to 
commend themselves to the sober judgments of enlightened 
and discriminating minds. Had we counted the Territories 
on the side of the North, and the District of Columbia on 
the side of the South, the result would have been still 
greater in behalf of free labor. Though " the sum of all 
villanies" has but a mere nominal existence in Delaware 
and Maryland, we have invariably counted those States on 
the side of the South ; and the consequence is, that, in 
many particulars, the hopeless fortunes of slavery have 
been propped up and sustained by an imposing array of 
figures which of right ought to be regarded as the property 
of freedom. But we like to be generous to an unfortunate 
foe, and would utterly disdain the use of any unfair means 
of attack or defence. 

We shall take no undue advantage of slavery. It shall 
have a fair trial, and be judged according to its deserts. 
Already has it been weighed in the balance, and found 
wanting ; it has been measured in the half-bushel, and 
found wanting ; it has been apprized in the field, and found 
wanting. Whatever redeeming traits or qualities it may 
possess, if any, shall be brought to light by subjecting it 
to other tests. 

It was our desire and intention to furnish a correct table 
of the gallon-measure products of the several States of the 
Union ; but we have not been successful in our attempt to 
procure the necessary statistics. Enough is known, how- 
ever, to satisfy us that the value of the milk, wine, ardent 
spirits, malt liquors, fluids, oils, and molasses, annually 



FKEE AND THE SLAVE STATES 15 

produced and sold in the free States, is at least fifty mil- 
lions of dollars greater than the value of the same articles 
annually produced and sold in the slave States. Of sweet 
milk alone, it is estimated that the monthly sales in three 
Northern cities, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, 
amount to a larger sum than the marketable value of all 
the rosin, tar, pitch, and turpentine, annually produced in 
the Southern States. 

Our efforts to obtain reliable information respecting 
another very important branch of profitable industry, the 
lumber business, have also proved unavailing ; and we are 
left to conjecture as to the amount of revenue annually 
derived from it in the two grand divisions of our country. 
The person whose curiosity prompts him to take an 
account of the immense piles of Northern lumber now lying 
on the wharves and houseless lots in Baltimore, Richmond, 
and other slaveholding cities, will not, we imagine, form 
a very flattering opinion of the products of Southern for- 
ests. Let it be remembered that nearly all the clippers, 
steamers, and small craft, are built at the North ; that 
large cargoes of Eastern lumber are exported to foreign 
countries ; that nine-tenths of the wooden-ware used in the 
Southern States is manufactured in New England ; that, 
in outrageous disregard of the natural rights and claims 
of Southern mechanics, the markets of the South are for- 
ever filled with Northern furniture, vehicles, ax helves, 
walking canes, yard-sticks, clothes-pins and pen-holders ; 
that the extraordinary number of factories, steam-engines, 
forges and machine-shops in the free States, require an 
extraordinary quantity of cord-wood ; that a large majority 



76 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

of the magnificent edifices and other structures, both 
private and public, in which timber, in its various forms, 
is extensively used, are to be found in the free States— 
we say, let all these things be remembered, and the truth 
will at once flash across the mind that the forests of the 
North are a source of far greater income than those of the 
South. The difference is simply this : At the North every- 
thing is turned to advantage. When a tree is cut down, 
the main body is sold or used for lumber, railing or paling, 
the stump for matches and shoepegs, the knees for ship- 
building, and the branches for fuel. At the South every- 
thing is either neglected or mismanaged. Whole forests 
are felled by the ruthless hand of slavery, the trees are 
cut into logs, rolled into heaps, covered with the limbs 
and brush, and then burned on the identical soil that gave 
them birth. The land itself next falls a prey to the fell 
destroyer, and that which was once a beautiful, fertile and 
luxuriant woodland, is soon despoiled of all its treasures, 
and converted into an eye-offending desert. 

Were we to go beneath the soil and collect all the min- 
eral and lapidarious wealth of the free States, we should 
find it so much greater than the corresponding wealth of 
the slave States, that no ordinary combination of figures 
would suffice to express the difference. To say nothing 
of the gold and quicksilver of California, the iron and coal 
of Pennsylvania, the copper of Michigan, the lead of Illi- 
nois, or the salt of New-York, the marble and free-stone quar- 
ries of New England are, incredible as it may seem to those unac- 
quainted with the facts, far more important sources of revenue 
than all the subterranean deposits in the slave States. From the 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 71 

most reliable statictics within our reach, we are led to the 
inference that the total value of all the precious metals, 
rocks, minerals, and medicinal waters, annually extracted 
from the bowels of the free States, is not less than eighty- 
five million of dollars ; the whole value of the same sub- 
stances annually brought up from beneath the surface of 
the slave States does not exceed twelve millions. In this 
respect to what is our poverty ascribable ? To the same 
cause that has impoverished and dishonored us in all other 
-respects — the thriftless and degrading institution of 
slavery. 

Nature has been kind to us in all things. The strata 
and substrata of the South are profusely enriched with 
gold and silver, and precious stones, and from the natural 
orifices and aqueducts in Virgina and North Carolina, flow 
the purest healing waters in the world. But of what avail 
is all this latent wealth ? Of what avail will it ever be, 
so long as slavery is permitted to play the dog in the 
manger ? To these queries there can be but one reply. 
Slavery must be suppressed ; the South, so great and so 
glorious by nature, must be reclaimed from her infamy 
and degradation ; our cities, fields and forests, must be 
kept intact from the unsparing monster ; the various 
and ample resources of our vast domain, subterraneous as 
well as superficial, must be developed, and made to con- 
tribute to our pleasures and to the necessities of the 
world. 

A very significant chapter, and one particularly perti- 
nent to many of the preceding pages, might be written 
on the Decline of Agriculture in the Slave States ; but as 



ijg COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

the press of other subjects admonishes us to be concise 
upon this point, we shall present only a few of the more 
striking instances. In the first place, let us compare the 
cr0 ps of wheat and rye in Kentucky, in 1850 wrth the 
corresponding crops in the same State m 1840-after 
which, we will apply a similar rule of comparison to two 
or three other slaveholding states. 

KENTUCKY. 

Wheat, bus. ***«■ 

a set" 1^9 l,321,o7 d 

Crop of 1840 4,0 152 

« "1850 2,142,82- ^_J 

Decrease 2^60,330 bus. Decrease 906,300 bus. 

TENNESSEE. 

Wheat, bus. Tobacco, lbs. 

a tea aw 29,550,432 

Cropofl840 4,569f2 

« "1850 l,619,o8b ^j j 

Decrease 2,950,306 bus. Decrease 9,401,500 lbs. 

VIRGINIA. 

Rye, bus. ™ iaCC0 ' lba - 

C'OP of 1840.-. 1,482,700 JJWg 

" " 1850 4oo, JoU > > 

Decrease 1,023,869 bus. Decrease 18,543,879 lbs. 

ALABAMA. 

Wheat, bus. R3-e,bus. 

Loq ov 61,000 

Crop of 1840 8o8,0o2 > 

« .< 1850 294,044 17 ^ bl 

Decrease 544,008 bus. Decrease 33,739 bus. 
The story of these figures is too intelligible to require 
worfq of explanation ; we shall, therefore, dron ttri» «"* 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 19 

of our subject, and proceed to compile a couple of tables 
that will exhibit on a single page the wealth, revenue and 
expenditure, of the several states of the confederacy. Let 
it be distinctly understood, however, that, in the compila- 
tion of these tables, three million two hundred and four 
thousand three hundred and thirteen negroes are valued 
as personal property, and credited to the Southern States 
as if they were so many horses and asses, or bridles and 
blankets — and that no monetary valuation whatever is 
placed on any creature, of any age, color, sex or condi- 
tion, that bears the upright form of man in the free States. 



80 



COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 



TABLE NO. XX. 

WEALTH, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE OF THE FREE STATES 

1850. 



States. 


Real and Personal 
property. 


Revenue. 


Expenditure. 


Massachusetts... . 
New Hampshire.. 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 


$22,161,872 

155,707,980 

156,265,006 

202,650,264 

23,714,638 

122,777,571 

573,342,286 

59,787,255 

103,652,835 

153,151,619 

1,080,309,216 

504,726,120 

729,144,998 

80,508,794 

92,205,049 

42,056,595 


$366,825 

150,189 

736,030 

1,283,064 

139,681 

744,879 

. 598,170 

548,326 

141,686 

I 1*9,166 

1,698,310 

3,016,403 

7,716,552 

124,944 

185,830 

135,155 


$925,625 

137,326 

192,940 

1,061,605 

131,631 

624,101 

674,622 

431,918 

149,890 

180,614 

2,520,932 

2.736.060 

6,876,480 

115,835 

183,058 

136,096 




$4,102,172,108 


$18,725,211 


$17,076,733 



TABLE NO. XXL 

WEALTH, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE OF THE SLAVE STATES 

1850. 



States. 


Real and Personal 
property. 


Revenue. W 


.. Expenditure. 

r~^4 — 

• $513,559 








Alabama 


$228,204,332 


$658,976 ' 




39,841,025 


68,412 


74,076 




18,855,863 








23,198,734 


60,619 


55,234 




33d;425,714 


. 1,142,405 
i 779,293 


597,882 




301,628,456 


674,697 




233,998,764 


1,098,911 


Maryland 


219,217,364 


- 1,279.953 
> 221f200 


1,360,458 




228,951,130 


223,637 




137,247,707 


326,579 


207,656 


North Carolina. . . 


226.800,472 


219,000 


228,173 


South Carolina... 


288,257,694 


532,152 


463,021 




207,454,704 


502,126 


623,625 




55,362,340 


* 140,688 


156.622 




391,646,438 

$2,930,090,737 


1,265,744 


1,272,382 




$8,343,715 


$7,549,933 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 81 

Entire Wealth of the Free States, $4,102,172,108 

Entire Wealth of the Slave States, including Slaves, 2,936,090,737 

Balance in favor of the Free States, $1,166,081,371 

What a towering monument to the beauty and glory of 
Free Labor ! What irrefragable evidence of the unequaled 
efficacy and grandeur of free institutions ! These figures 
are, indeed, too full of meaniug to be passed by without 
comment. The two tables from which they are borrowed 
are at least a volume within themselves ; and, after all the . 
pains we have taken to compile them, we shall, perhaps, 
feel somewhat disappointed if the reader fails to avail him- 
self of the important information they impart. 

Human life, in all ages, has been made up of a series of 
adventures and experiments, and even at this stage of the 
world's existence, we are almost as destitute of a perfect 
rule of action, secular or religious, as were the erratic co- 
temporaries of Noah. It is true, however, that we have 
made some progress in the right direction ; and as it seems 
to be the tendency of the world to correct itself, we may 
suppose that future generations will be enabled, by intui- 
tion, to discriminate between the true and the false, the 
good and the bad, and that with the development of this fac- 
ulty of the mind, error and discord will begin to wane, and 
finally cease to exist. Of all the experiments that have 
been tried by the people in America, slavery has proved 
the most fatal ; and the sooner it is abolished the better it 
will be for us, for posterity, and for the world. One of 
the evils resulting from it, and that not the least, is ap- 
parent in the figures above. Indeed, the unprofitableness of 
4* 



82 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

slavery is a monstrous evil, when considered in all its 
bearings ; it makes us poor ; poverty makes us ignorant ; 
ignorance makes us wretched ; wretchedness makes us 
wicked, and wickedness leads to the devil ! 

"Ignorance is the curse of God, 

Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." 

Facts truly astounding are disclosed in the two last 
tables, and we could heartily wish that every intelligent 
American would commit them to memory. The total 
value of all the real and personal property of the free 
States, with an area of only 612,591 square miles, is one 
billion one hundred and sixty-six million eighty-one thou- 
sand three hundred and seventy-one dollars greater than 
the total value of all the real and personal property, in- 
cluding the price of 3,204,313 negroes, of the slave States, 
which have an area of 851,508 square miles ! But extra- 
ordinary as this difference is in favor of the North, it is 
much less than the true amount. On the authority of South- 
rons themselves, it is demonstrable beyond the possibility of refu- 
tation that the intrinsic value of all the property in the free States 
is more than three times greater than the intrinsic value of all the 
property in the slave States. 

James Madison, a Southern man, fourth President of the 
United States, a most correct thinker, and one of the 
greatest statesmen the country has produced, " thought it 
wrong to admit the idea that there could be property in 
man," and we indorse, to the fullest extent, this opinion of 
the profound editor of the Federalist. We shall not recog- 
nize property in man ; the slaves of the South are not 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 83 

worth a groat in any civilized community ; no man of gen- 
uine decency and refinement would hold them as property 
on any terms ; in the eyes of all enlightened nations and 
individuals, they are men, not merchandize. Southern 
pro-slavery politicians, some of whom have not hesitated 
to buy and sell their own sons and daughters, boast that 
the slaves of the South are worth sixteen hundred million 
of dollars, and we have seen the amount estimated as high 
as two thousand million. Mr. De Bow, the Southern su- 
perintendent of the seventh census, informs us that the 
value of all the property in the slave States, real and per- 
sonal, including slaves, was, in 1850, only $2,936,090,13?; 
while, according to the same authority, the value of all 
the real and personal property in the free States, genuine 
property, property that is everywhere recognized as pro- 
perty, was, at the same time, $4,102,112,108. Now all 
we have to do in order to ascertain the real value of all 
the property of the South, independent of negroes, whose 
value, if valuable at all, is of a local and precarious char- 
acter, is to subtract from the sum total of Mr. De Bow's 
return of the entire wealth of the slave States the estima- 
ted value of the slaves themselves ; and then, by deduct- 
ing tbe difference from the intrinsic value of all the pro- 
perty in the free States, we shall have the exact amount 
of the overplus of wealth in the glorious land of free soil, 
free labor, free speech, free presses, and free schools. 
And now to the task. 

Entire Wealth of the Slave States, including Slaves, $2,936,090,737 
Estimated Value of the Slaves, 1^600^000^000 

True Wealth of the Slave States, $1,336,090,737 



84 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

True Wealth of the Free States, $4,102,172,108 

True Wealth of the Slave States, 1,336,090,737 



Balance in favor of the Free States, . . $2,766,081,371 

There, friends of the South and of the North, you have 
the conclusion of the, whole matter. Liberty and slavery 
are before you ; choose which you will have ; as for us, in 
the memorable language of the immortal Henry, we say, 
" give us liberty, or give us death 1" In the great struggle 
for wealth that has been going on between the two rival 
systems of free and slave labor, the balance above exhibits 
the net profits of the former. The struggle on the one side 
has been calm, laudable, and eminently successful ; on the 
other, it has been attended by tumult, unutterable cruelties 
and disgraceful failure. We have given the slave drivers 
every conceivable opportunity to vindicate their domestic 
policy, but for them to do it is a moral impossibility. 

Less than three-quarters of a century ago — say in 1189, 
for that was about the average time of the abolition of 
slavery in the Northern States — the South, with advan- 
tages in soil, climate, rivers, harbors, minerals, forests, 
and, indeed, almost every other natural resource, began an 
even race with the North in all the important pursuits of 
life ; and now, in the brief space of scarce three score 
years and ten, we find her completely distanced, enervated, 
dejected and dishonored. Slave-drivers are the sole authors 
of her disgrace ; as they have sown so let them reap. 

As we have seen above, a careful and correct inventory 
of all the real and personal property in the two grand divi- 
sions of the country, discloses the astounding fact that, in 
1850, the free States were worth precisely two thousand 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 85 

seven hundred and sixty-six million eighty-one thousand three hun- 
dred and seventy-one dollars more than the slave States ! 
Twenty-seven hundred and sixty-six million of dollars ! — 
Think of it ! What a vast and desirable sum, and how 
much better off the South would be with it than without 
it ! Such is the enormous amount out of which slavery 
has defrauded us during the space of sixty-one years — 
from 1189 to 1850 — being an average of about forty-five 
million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum. 
During the last twenty-five or thirty years, however, our 
annual losses have been far greater than they were form- 
erly. There has been a gradual increase every year, and 
now the ratio of increase is almost incredible. No patri- 
otic Southerner can become conversant with the facts 
without experiencing a feeling of alarm and indignation. 
Until the North abolished slavery, she had no advantage 
of us whatever ; the South was more than her equal in 
every respect. But no sooner had she got rid of that 
hampering and pernicious institution than she began to 
absorb our wealth, and now it is confidently believed that 
the merchant and negro-driving pleasure-seekers of the 
South annually pour one hundred and twenty million of 
dollars into her coffers ! Taking into account, then, the 
probable amount of money that has been drawn from the 
South and invested in the North within the last six years, 
and adding it to the grand balance above — the net profits 
of the North up to 1850 — it may be safely assumed that, 
in the present year of grace, 1857, the free States are worth 
at least thirty-four hundred million of dollars more than the slave 
States! Let him who dares, gainsay these remarks and 



86 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

calculations ; no truthful tongue will deny them ; no hon- 
orable pen can controvert them. 

One more word now as to the valuation of negroes. 
Were our nature so degraded, or our conscience so elastic 
as to permit us to set a price upon men, as we would set 
a price upon cattle and corn, we should be content to abide 
by the appraisement of the slaves of the South, and would 
then enter into a calculation to ascertain the value of for- 
eigners to the North. Not long since, it was declared in 
the South that " one free laborer is equal to five slaves," 
and as there are two million five hundred thousand Euro- 
peans in the free States, all of whom are free laborers, we 
might bring Southern authority to back us in estimating 
their value at sixty-two hundred million of dollars — a hand- 
some sum wherewithal to offset the account of sixteen hun- 
dred million of dollars, brought forward as the value of 
Southern slaves! It is obvious, therefore, that if we were 
disposed to follow the barbarian example of the traffick- 
ers in human flesh, we could prove the North vastly 
richer than the South in bone and sinew— to say nothing 
of mind and morals, which shall receive our attention 
hereafter. The North has just as good aright to appraise 
the Irish immigrant, as the South has to set a price on 
the African slave. But as it would be wrong to do either, 
we shall do neither. It is not our business to think bf 
man as a merchantable commodity ; and we will not, even 
by implication, admit "the wild and guilty fantasy," 
that the condition of chattelhood may rightfully attach to 
sentient and immortal beings. 

In this connection, we would direct the special atten- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 8? 

tion of the reader to the following eloquent passage, ex- 
hibiting* the philosophy of free and slave labor, from the 
facile pen of the editor of the North American and United 
States Gazette : 

" In the very nature of things, the freeman must pro- 
duce more than the slave. There is no conclusion of 
science more certain. Under a system which gives to a 
laboring man the fruit of his toil, there is every motive to 
render him diligent and assiduous. If he relies on being 
employed- by others, his wages rise with his reputation for 
industry, skill, and faithfulness. And as owner of the 
soil, there is every assurance that he will do what he can 
to cultivate it to the best advantage, and develope its la- 
tent wealth. Self-interest will call forth what powers of 
intellect and of invention he has to - aid him in his work, 
and employ his physical strength to the greatest possible 
advantage. Free labor receives an immediate reward, 
which cheers and invigorates it ; and above all, it has 
that chief spring of exertion, hope, whose bow always 
spans the heaven before it. It has an inviolate hearth ; 
it has a home. But it looks forward to a still better con- 
dition, to brighter prospects in the future, to which its 
efforts all contribute. The children in such a household 
are chief inducements to nerve the arm of labor, that they 
may be properly cared for, fed, clothed, educated, accom- 
plished, instructed in some useful and honorable calling, 
and provided for when they shall go out upon the world. 
All its sentiments, religious and otherwise, all its affec- 
tions for parents and kindred, all its tastes are so many 
impelling and stimulating forces. It is disposed to read, 



88 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

to ornament its home, to travel, to enjoy social intercourse, 
and to attain these ends, it rises' to higher exertions and 
a stricter economy of time ; it explores every path of em- 
ployment, and is, therefore, in the highest degree produc- 
tive. 

" How different is it with slave labor ! The slave toils 
for another, and not for himself. Whether he does little 
or much, whether his work is well or ill performed, he has 
a subsistence, nothing less, nothing more ; and why should 
he toil beyond necessity ? He cannot accumulate any 
property for the decline of his years, or to leave to his 
children when he is departed. Nay, he cannot toil to bet- 
ter the present condition of his children. They belong to 
another, and not to him. He cannot supply his hut with 
comforts, or embellish it with the adornments of taste. 
He does not read. He does not journey for pleasure. In- 
ducements to exertion, he has none. That he may adapt 
himself to his condition, and enjoy the present hour, he 
deadens those aspirations that must always be baffled in 
his case, and sinks down into ease and sensuality. His 
mind is unlighted and untutored ; dark with ignorance. 
Among those who value him most, he is proverbially in- 
dolent, thievish, and neglectful of his master's interests. 
It is common for even the advocates of slavery to declare 
that one freeman is worth half a dozen slaves. With every 
cord to exertion thus sundered, the mind benighted, the 
man nearly lost in the animal, it requires no deep philoso- 
phy to see why labor cannot be near as productive as it 
would be were these conditions all reversed. Though 
ever so well directed by the superior skill, and urged for- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 89 

rd by the strong arm of the master, slave labor is 
"aecessarily a blight to the soil — sterility follows in its 
steps, and not afar off. 

" What a difference, plain and heaven-wide, between the 
outward and interior life of a slave and of a free commu- 
nity, resulting directly and palpably from this difference 
in its labor. The cottage-home, amid trees and shrubbery, 
its apartments well adorned and furnished, books on its 
shelves, and the passing literature of the day scattered 
around ; the few, perhaps, but well-tilled acres, belonging 
to the man who tills them ; the happy children with sunny 
prospects ; the frequent school ; the church arrayed with 
beauty ; the thriving, handsome village ; the flourishing 
cities and prosperous marts of trade ; the busy factories ; 
railroads, traffic, travel — where free labor tills the ground, 
how beautiful it all is in contrast to the forlorn and dreary 
aspect of a country tilled by slaves. The villages of such 
a country are mainly groups of miserable huts. Its com- 
paratively few churches are too often dilapidated and un- 
sightly. The common school-house, 'the poor man's col- 
lege, is hardly known, showing how little interest is felt 
in the chief treasures of the State, the immortal minds of 
the multitude who are not born to wealth. The signs of 
premature old age are visibly impressed upon everything 
that meets the eye. The fields present a dread monotony. 
Everywhere you see lands that are worn out, barren and 
deserted, in consecpience of slave tillage, left for more fer- 
tile lands in newer regions, which are also, in their turn, 
to be smitten with sterility and forsaken. The free com- 
munity may increase its population almost without limit. 



90 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

The capacity of slave countries to sustain a population is 
soon at an end, and then it diminishes. In all the elements 
of essential prosperity, in all that elevates man, how strik- 
ing the contrast between the region that is tilled by slave, 
and the region that is tilled by free labor." 

For the purpose of showing what Virginia, once the 
richest, most populous, and most powerful of the States, 
has become under the blight of slavery, we shall now in- 
troduce an extract from one of the speeches delivered by 
Henry A. Wise, during the last gubernatorial campaign 
in that degraded commonwealth. Addressing a Virginia 
audience, in language as graphic as it is truthful, he 



" Commerce has long ago spread her sails, and sailed 
away from you. You have not, as yet, dug more than 
coal enough to warm yourselves at your own hearths; you 
have set no tilt-hammer of Vulcan to strike blows worthy 
of gods in your own iron-foundries ; you have not yet spun 
more than coarse cotton enough, in the way of manufac- 
ture, to clothe your own slaves. You have no commerce, 
no mining, no manufactures. You have relied alone on 
the single power of agriculture, and „siicA agriculture! Your 
sedge-patches outshine the sun. Your inattention to 
your only source of wealth, has seared the very bosom of 
mother earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on a thou- 
sand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed steer 
through the sedge-p'atches to procure a tough beef-steak. 
The present condition of things has existed too long in 
Virginia. The landlord has skinned the tenant, and the 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 91 

tenant has skinned the land, until all have grown poor 
together." 

With tears in its eyes, and truth on its lips, for the first 
time after an interval of twenty years, the Richmond En- 
quirer helps to paint the melancholy picture. In 1852, that 
journal thus bewailed the condition of Virginia : — 

" We have cause to feel deeply for our situation. Phil- 
adelphia herself contains a population far greater than 
the whole free population of Eastern Virginia. The little 
State of Massachusetts has an aggregate wealth exceed- 
ing that of Virginia by more than $126,000,000." 

Just a score of years before these words were penned, the 
same paper, then edited by the elder Ritchie, made a most 
earnest appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of Virgi- 
nia, to adopt an effectual measure for the speedy over- 
throw of the damnable institution of human bondage. 
Here is an extract from an article which appeared in its 
editorial column under date of January 1th, 1832 : 

" Something must be done, and it is the part of no 
honest man to deny it — of no free press to affect to con- 
ceal it. When this dark population is growing upon us ; 
when every new census is but gathering its appalling 
numbers upon us ; when, within a period equal to that in 
which this Federal Constitution has been in existence, 
these numbers will increase to more than two millions 
within Virginia ; when our sister States are closing their 
doors upon our blacks for sale, and when our whites are 
moving westwardly in greater numbers than we like to 
hear of ; when this, the fairest land on all this continent, 
for soil, and climate, and situation, combined, might be- 



92 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

come a sort of garden spot, if it were worked by the hands 
of white men alone, can we, ought we, to sit quietly down, 
fold our arms, and say to each other, 'Well, well ; this 
thing will not come to the worst in our days ; we will 
leave it to our children, and our grandchildren, and great- 
grandchildren, to take care of themselves, and to brave 
the storm !' Is this to act like wise men ? Means, sure 
but gradual, systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted, 
for reducing the mass of evil which is pressing upon the 
South, and will still more press upon her, the longer it is 
put off. We say now, in the utmost sincerity of our hearts, 
that our wisest men cannot give too much of their atten- 
tion to this subject, nor can they give it too soon." 

Better abolition doctrine than this is seldom heard. 
Why did not the JEnquricr continue to preach it ? What 
potent influence hushed its clarion voice, just as it began 
to be lifted in behalf of a liberal policy and an enlightened 
humanity ? Had Mr. Eitchie continued to press the truth 
home to the hearts of the people, as he should have done, 
Virginia, instead of being worth only $392,000,000 in 1850 
— negroes and all — would have been worth at least $800,- 
000,000 in genuine property ; and if the State had eman- 
cipated her slaves at the time of the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, the last census would no doubt have reported her 
wealth, and correctly, at a sum exceeding a thousand 
millions of dollars. 

Listen now to the statement of a momentous fact. The 
value of all the property, real and personal, including 
slaves, in seven slave States, Virginia, North Carolina, 
Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Texas, is less 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 93 

than the real and personal estate, which is unquestionable 
property, in the single State of New-York 1 Nay, worse ; 
if eight entire slave States, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, 
Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, and 
the District of Columbia — with all their hordes of human 
merchandize — were put up at auction, New- York could 
buy them all, and then have- one hundred and thirty- three 
millions of dollars left in her pocket 1 Such is the amaz- 
ing contrast between freedom and slavery, even in a pe- 
cuniary point of view. When we come to compare the 
North with the South in regard to literature, general in- 
telligence, inventive genius, moral and religious enterprises, 
the discoveries in medicine, and the progress in the arts 
and sciences, we shall, in every instance, find the con- 
trast equally great on the side of Liberty. 

It gives, us no pleasure to say hard things of the Old 
Dominion, the mother of Washington, Jefferson, Henry, 
and other illustrious patriots, who, as we shall prove here- 
after, were genuine abolitionists ; but the policy which she 
has pursued has been so utterly inexcusable, so unjust to 
the non-slaveholding whites, so cruel to the negroes, and 
so disregardful of the rights of humanity at large, that it 
becomes the duty of every one who makes allusion to her 
history, to expose her follies, her crimes, and her poverty, 
and to publish every fact, of whatever nature, that would 
be instrumental in determining others to eschew her bad 
example. She has wilfully departed from the faith of the 
founders of this Republic. She has not only turned a deaf 
ear to the counsel of wise men from other States in the 
Union, but she has, in like manner, ignored the teachings 



94 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

of the great warriors and statesmen who have sprung from 
her own soil. In a subsequent chapter, we expect to show 
that all, or nearly all, the distinguished Virginians, whose 
bodies have been consigned to the grave, but whose names 
have been given to history, and whose memoirs have a 
place in the hearts of their countrymen, were the friends 
and advocates of universal freedom — that they were inflex- 
ibly opposed to the extension of slavery into the Territories, 
devised measures for its restriction, and, with hopeful 
anxiety, looked forward to the time when it should be 
eradicated from the States themselves. "With them, the 
rescue of our country from British domination, and the 
establishment of the General Government upon a firm basis, 
were considerations of paramount importance ; they sup- 
posed, and no doubt earnestly desired, that the States, in 
their sovereign capacities, would soon abolish an institu- 
tion which was so palpably in conflict with the principles 
enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, it 
would seem that, among the framers of that immortal 
instrument and its equally immortal Sequel, the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, there was a tacit understanding 
to this effect ; and the Northern States, true to their 
implied faith, abolished it within a short period after our 
national independence had been secured. Not so with the 
South. She has pertinaciously refused to perform her duty. 
She has apostajized from the faith of her greatest men, and 
even at thievery moment repudiates the sacred principle 
that " all men are endowed by their Creator with certain 
unalienable rights," among which "are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness" It is evident, therefore, that 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 95 

the free States are the only members of this confederacy 
that have established republican forms of government 
based upon the theories of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
Henry, and other eminent statesmen of Virginia. 

The great revolutionary movement which was set on foot 
in Charlotte, Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, on the 
20th day of May, 1115, has not yet been terminated, nor 
will it bo, until every slave in the United States is freed 
from the tyranny of his master. Every victim of the vile 
institution, whether white or black, must be reinvested 
with the sacred rights and privileges of which he has been 
deprived by an inhuman oligarchy. What our noble sires 
of the revolution left unfinished it is our duty to complete. 
They did all that true valor and patriotism could accom- 
plish. Not one iota did they swerve from their plighted 
faith ; the self-sacrificing spirit which they evinced will 
command the applause of every succeeding age. Not in 
vindication of their own personal rights merely, but of the 
rights of humanity ; not for their own generation and age 
simply, but for all ages to the end of time, they gave their 
toil, their treasure and their blood, nor deemed them all 
too great a price to pay for the establishment of so com- 
prehensive and beneficent a principle. Let their posterity 
emulate their courage, their disinterestedness, and their 
zeal, and especially remember that it is the duty of every 
existing generation so to provide for its individual inter- 
ests, as to confer superior advantages on that which is to 
follow. To this principle the North has adhered with the 
strictest fidelity. How has it been with the South ? Has 
she imitated the praiseworthy example of our illustrious 



96 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

ancestors ? No ! She has treated it with the utmost 
contempt ; she has been extremely selfish — so selfish, 
indeed, that she has robbed posterity of its natural rights. 
From the period of the formation of the government down 
to the present moment, her policy has been downright sui- 
cidal, and, as a matter of course, wholly indefensible. She 
has hugged a viper to her breast ; her whole system has 
been paralyzed, her conscience is seared, and she is 
becoming callous to every principle of justice and magna- 
nimity. Except among the non-slaveholders, who, besides 
being kept in the grossest ignorance, are under the 
restraint of all manner of iniquitous laws, patriotism has 
ceased to exist within her borders. And here we desire 
to be distinctly understood, for we shall have occasion to 
refer to this matter again. We repeat, therefore, the sub- 
stance of our averment, that, at this day, there is not a 
grain of patriotism in the South, except among the non- 
slaveholders. Subsequent pages shall testify to the truth 
of this assertion. Here and there, it is true, a slaveholder, 
disgusted with the institution, becomes ashamed of him- 
self, emancipates his negroes, and enters upon the walks 
of honorable life ; but these cases are exceedingly rare, and 
do not, in any manner, disprove the general correctness of 
our remark All persons who do voluntarily manumit 
their slaves, as mentioned above, are undeniably actuated 
by principles of pure patriotism, justice and humanity ; 
and so believing, we delight to do them honor. 

Once more to the Old Dominion. At her door we lay 
the bulk of the evils of slavery. The first African sold in 
America was sold on James River, in that State, on the 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 97 

20th of August, 1620 ; and although the institution was 
fastened upon her and the other colonies by the mother 
country, she was the first to perceive its blighting and 
degrading influences, her wise men were the first to de- 
nounce it, and, after the British power was overthrown at 
York Town, she should have been the first to abolish it. 
Fifty-seven years ago she was the Empire State ; now, 
with half a dozen other slaveholding states thrown into 
the scale with her, she is far inferior to New- York, which, 
at the time Cornwallis surrendered his sword to Washing- 
ton, was less than half her equal. Had she obeyed the 
counsels of the good, the great and the wise men of our 
nation — especially of her own incomparable sons, the ex- 
tendible element of slavery would have been promptly 
arrested, and the virgin soil of nine Southern States, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Mis- 
souri, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas, would have been 
saved from its horrid pollutions. Confined to the original 
states in which it existed, the institution would soon have 
been disposed of by legislative enactments, and long be- 
fore the present day, by a gradual process that could have 
shocked no interest and alarmed no prejudice, we should 
have rid ourselves not only of African slavery, which is 
an abomination and a curse, but also of the negroes them- 
selves, who, in our judgment, whether viewed in relation 
to their actual characteristics and condition, or through 
the strong antipathies of the whites, are, to say the least, 
an undesirable population. 

This, then, is the ground of our expostulation with Vir- 
ginia : that, in stubborn disregard of the advice and 

5 



98 COMPARISON BiZtfEEN THE 

friendly warnings of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
Henry, and a host of other distinguished patriots who 
sprang from her soil — patriots whose voices shall be 
heard before we finish our task — and in utter violation 
of every principle of justice and humanity, she still persists 
in fostering an institution which is so manifestly detri- 
mental to her vital interests. Every Virginian, whether 
living or dead, whose name is an honor to his country, has 
placed on record his abhorrence of slavery, and in doing 
so, has borne testimony to the blight and degradation that 
everywhere follow in its course. One of the best aboli- 
tion speeches we have ever read was delivered in the Vir- 
ginia House of Delegates, January 20th, 1832, by Charles 
James Faulkner, who still lives, and who has, we under- 
stand, generously emancipated several of his slaves, and 
sent them to Liberia. Here follows an extract from his 
speech ; let Southern politicians read it attentively, and 
imbibe a moiety of the spirit of patriotism which it 
breathes : — 

" Sir, I am gratified to perceive that no gentleman has 
yet risen in this Hall, the avowed advocate of slavery. 
The dan has gone by when such a voice could he listened to with 
patience, or even with forbearance. I even regret, Sir, that 
we should find those amongst us who enter the lists of 
discussion as its apologists, except alone upon the ground 
of uncontrollable necessity. And yet, who could have 
listened to the very eloquent remarks of the gentleman 
from Brunswick, without being forced to conclude that he 
at least considered slavery, however not to he defended upon 
principle, yet as being divested of much of its enormity, as 
you approach it in practice. 



USEE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 99 

" Sir, if there be one who concurs with that gentleman 
in the harmless character of this institution, let me re- 
quest him to compare the condition of the slaveholding 
portion of this commonwealth — barren, desolate, and seared 
as it were by the avenging hand of Heaven — -with the descrip- 
tions which we have of this country from those who first 
broke its virgin soil. To what is this change ascribable ? 
Alone to the withering and blasting effects of slavery. If this 
does not satisfy him, let me request him to extend his 
travels to the Northern States of this Union, and beg him 
to contrast the happiness and contentment which prevail 
throughout that country, the busy and cheerful sound of 
industry, the rapid and swelling growth of their popula- 
tion, their means and institutions of education, their skill 
and proficiency in the useful arts, their enterprise and 
public spirit, the monuments of their commercial and man- 
ufacturing industry ; and, above all, their devoted at- 
tachment to the government from which they derive their 
protection, with the derision, discontent, indolence, and poverty 
of the Southern country. To what, Sir, is all this ascrib- 
able ? To thai vice in the organization of society, by which one- 
half of its inhabitants are arrayed in interest and feeling against 
the other half — to that unfortunate state of society in which 
freemen regard labor as disgraceful, and slaves shrink 
from it as a burden tyrannically imposed upon them — to 
that condition of things in which half a million of your 
population can feel no sympathy with the society in the 
prosperity of which they are forbidden to participate, and 
no attachment to a government at whose hands they re- 
ceive nothing but injustice. 



100 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

"If this should not be sufficient, and the curious and 
incredulous inquirer should suggest that the contrast 
which has been adverted to, and which is so manifest, 
might be traced to a difference of climate, or other causes 
distinct from slavery itself, permit me to refer him to the 
two States of Kentucky and Ohio. No difference of soil, 
no diversity of climate, no diversity in the original set- 
tlement of those two States, can account for the remark- 
able disproportion in their natural advancement. Sepa- 
rated by a river alone, they seem to have been purposely and 
providentially designed to exhibit in their future histories the dif- 
ference which necessarily results from a country free from, and a 
country afflicted with, the curse of slavery. 

" Vain and idle is every effort to strangle this inquiry. 
As well might you attempt to chain the ocean, or stay the 
avenging thunderbolts of Heaven, as to drive the people 
from any inquiry which may result in their better condi- 
tion. This is too deep, too engrossing a subject of consid- 
eration. It addresses itself too strongly to our interests, 
to our passions, and to our feelings. I shall advocate no 
scheme that does not respect the right of property, so far 
as it is entitled to be respected, with a just regard to the safety 
and resources of the State. I would approach the subject 
as one of great magnitude and delicacy, as one whose va- 
ried and momentous consequences demand the calmest and 
most deliberate investigation. But still, Sir, I would ap- 
proach it— aye, delicate as it may be, encompassed as it 
may be with difficulties and hazards, I would still approach 
it. The people demand it. Their security requires it. 
In the language of the wise and prophetic Jefferson, ' You 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 101 

must approach it — you must bear it — you must adopt 
some plan of emancipation, or worse will follow.' " 

Mr. Curtis, in a speech in the Virginia Legislature in 
1832, said : 

" There is a malaria in the atmosphere of these regions, 
which the new comer shuns, as being deleterious to his 
views and habits. See the wide-spreading ruin which the 
avarice of our ancestral government has produced in the 
South, as witnessed in a sparse population of freemen, 
deserted habitations, and fields without culture ! Strange 
to tell, even the wolf, driven back long since by the ap- 
proach of man, now returns, after the lapse of a hundred 
years, to howl over the desolations of slavery." 

Mr. Moore, also a member of the Legislature of Virginia, 
in speaking of the evils of slavery, said : 

" The first I shall mention is the irresistible tendency 
which it has to undermine and destroy everything like vir- 
tue and morality in the community. If we look back 
through the long course of time which has elapsed since 
the creation to the present moment, we shall scarcely be 
able to point out a people whose situation was not, in 
many respects, preferable to our own, and that of the other 
States, in which negro slavery exists. 

" In that part of the State below tide-water, the whole 
face of the country wears an appearance of almost utter 
desolation, distressing to the beholder. The very spot 
on which our ancestors landed, a little more than two 
hundred years ago, appears to be on the eve of again be- 
coming the haunt of wild beasts." 

Mr. Rives, of Campbell county, said : 



102 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

" On the multiplied and desolating evils of slavery, he 
was not disposed to say much. The curse and deteriora- 
ting consequence were within the observation and expe- 
rience of the members of the House and the people of Vir- 
ginia, and it did not seem to him that there could be two 
opinions about it." 

Mr. Powell said : 

" I can scarcely persuade myself that there is a solitary 
gentleman in this House who will nbt readily admit that 
slavery is an evil, and that its removal, if practicable, is 
a consummation most devoutly to be wished. I have not 
heard, nor do I expect to hear, a voice raised in this Hall 
to the contrary." 

In the language of another, " we might multiply ex- 
tracts almost indefinitely from Virginia authorities — tes- 
tifying to the blight and degradation that have overtaken 
the Old Dominion, in every department of her affairs. 
Her commerce gone, her agriculture decaying, her land 
falling in value, her mining and manufactures nothing, 
her schools dying out, — she presents, according to the 
testimony of her own sons, the saddest of all pictures — 
that of a sinking and dying State." Every year leaves 
her in a worse condition than it found her ; and as it is 
with Virginia, so it is with the entire South. In the terse 
language of Governor Wise, " all have grown poor to- 
gether." The black god cf slavery, which the South has 
worshipped for two bundled and thirty-seven years, is but 
a devil in disguise ; and if we would save ourselves from 
being engulphed in utter ruin we must repudiate this foul 
god, for a purer deity, and abandon his altars for a holier 



FREE AND TI1E SLAVE STATES. 103 

shrine. No time is to be lost ; Lis fanatical adorers, the 
despotic adversaries of human liberty, are concocting 
schemes for the enslavement of all the laboring classes' 
irrespective of race or color. The issue is before us ; we 
cannot evade it ; we must meet it with firmness, and with 
unflinching valor. 

"What it was that paralyzed the tongues of all those 
members of the Virgina Legislature, who, at the session 
of 1831-32, distinguished themselves by advocating a 
system of emancipation, is a mystery that has never yet 
been solved. Whether any 01 all of them shared a divi- 
sion of spoils with a certain newspaper editor, we 
have no means of knowing ; but if all accounts be true, 
there was consummated in Richmond, in the latter part 
of the year 1832, one of the blackest schemes of bribery 
and corruption that was ever perpetrated in this or any 
other country. We are assured, however, that one thing 
is certain, and it is this : that the negro population of 
Virginia was very considerably and suddenly decreased 
by forcible emigration — that a large gang was driven 
further South, sold, and the proceeds divided among cer- 
tain renegades and traitors, who, Juclas-like, had agreed 
to serve the devil for a price. 

We would fain avoid all personalities and uncompli- 
mentary allusions to the dead, but when men, from love 
of lucre, from mere selfish motives, or from sheer turpi- 
tude of heart, inflict great injuries and outrages on the 
public, their villainy ought to be exposed, so that others 
may be deterred from following in their footsteps. A3 a 
general rule, man's moral nature is, we believe, so strong 



104 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

that it invariably prompts him to eschew vice and prac- 
tice virtue — in other words, to do right ; but this rule, 
like all others, has its exceptions, as might be most strik- 
ingly illustrated in the character of , and 

some half-dozen or more of his pro-slavery coadjutors. 
From whose hands did this man receive fifty thousand 
dollars — improperly, if not illegally, taken from the 
public funds in Washington ? When did he receive it ? — 
and for what purpose ? — and who was the arch-dema- 
gogue through whose agency the transfer was made ? 
He was an oligarchical member of the Cabinet under Mr. 
Polk's administration in 1845, — and the money was 
used, — and who can doubt intended ? — for the express 
purpose of establishing another negro-driving journal to 
support the tottering fortunes of slavery. From the 
second volume of a valuable political work, " by a Sena- 
tor of thirty years," we make the following pertinent 
extract : — 

" The Globe was sold, and was paid for, and how ? be- 
comes a question of public concern to answer ; for it was 
paid for out of public money — those same $50,000 which 
were removed to the village bank in the interior of Penn- 
sylvania by a Treasury order on the fourth of November, 
1844. Three annual installments made the payment, and 
the Treasury did not reclaim the money for these three 
years ; and, though traveling through tortuous channels, 
the sharpsighted Mr. Rives traced the money back to its 
starting point from that deposit. Besides, Mr. Cameron, 
who had control of the village lank, admitted before a 
committee of Congress, that he had furnished money for 



FREE AND TOTE SLAVE STATES. l05 

the payments — an admission which the obliging Commit- 
tee, on request, left out of their report. Mr. Robert J. 
Walker was Secretary of the Treasury during these three 
years, and the conviction was absolute, among the close 
observers of the course of things, that he was the prime 
contriver and zealous manager of the arrangements which 
displaced Mr. Blair and installed Mr. Ritchie." 

Thus, if we are to believe Mr. Benton, in his " Thirty 
Year's View," and we are disposed to regard him as good 
authority, the Washington Union was brought into exis- 
tence under the peculiar auspices of the ostensible editor 
of the Richmond Enquirer ; and the two papers, fathered 
by the same individual, have gone hand in hand for the 
last dozen or thirteen years, the shameless advocates and 
defenders of human bondage. To suppose that either has 
been sustained by fairer means than it was commenced 
with, would be wasting imagination on a great improba- 
bility. Both have uniformly and pertinaciously opposed 
every laudable enterprise that the white non-slaveholder 
has projected ; indeed, so unmitigated has been their hos- 
tility to all manual pursuits in which their stupid and vul- 
gar slaves can not be employed to advantage — and if 
there is any occupation under the sun in which they can be 
employed to good advantage, we knowjjj not what it is — ■ 
that it is an extremely difficult matter to find a respecta- 
ble merchant, mechanic, manufacturer, or business man 
of any calling whatever, within the bounds of their circu 
lation. 

We have been credibly informed by a gentleman from 

Powhattan countv, in Virginia, that in the year 1836 or 

5* 



106 COMPAKISON BETWEEN 1HE 

'3T, or about that time, the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, of Bos- 
ton, backe'd by his brother Amos and other millionaires of 
New England, went down to Richmond with the sole view 
of reconnoitering the manufacturing facilities of that place 
— fully determined, if pleased with the water-power, to 
erect a large number of cotton-mills and machine-shops. 
He had been in the capital of Virginia only a day or two 
before he discovered, much to his gratification, that nature 
had shaped everything to his liking ; and as he was a 
business man who transacted business in a business-like 
manner, he lost no time in making preliminary arrange- 
ments for the consummation of his noble purpose. His 
mission was one of peace and promise ; others were to 
share the benefits of his laudable and concerted scheme ; 
thousands of poor boys and girls in Virginia, instead of 
growing up in extreme poverty and ignorance, or of having 
to emigrate to the free States of the West, were to have 
avenues of profitable employment opened to them at home ; 
thus they would be enabled to earn an honest and reputa- 
ble living, to establish and sustain free schools, free libra- 
ries, free lectures, and free presses, to become useful and 
exemplary members of society, and to die fit candidates 
for heaven. The magnanimous New Englander was in 
ecstasies with the prospect that opened before him. Indi- 
vidually, so far as mere money was concerned, he was per- 
fectly independent ; his industry and economy in early 
life had secured to him the ownership and control of an 
ample fortune. With the aid of eleven other men, each 
equal to himself, he could have bought the whole city of 
Richmond — negroes and all — though it is not to be pre- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 101 

suined that he would have disgraced his name by becoming 
a trader in human flesh. But he was not selfish ; unlike 
the arrogant and illiberal slaveholder, he did not regard 
himself as the centre around whom everybody else should 
revolve. On the contrary, he was a genuine philanthropist. 
While, with a shrewdness that will command the admira- 
tion of every practical business man, he engaged in nothing 
that did not swell the dimensions of his own purse, he was 
yet always solicitous to invest his capital in a manner cal- 
culated to promote the interest of those around him. Nor 
was he satisfied with simply furnishing the means whereby 
his less fortunate neighbors were to become prosperous, 
intelligent and contented. "With his generous heart and 
sagacious mind, he delighted to aid them in making a 
judicious application of his wealth to their own use. 
Moreover, as a member of society, he felt that the commu- 
nity had some reasonable claims upon him, and he made 
it obligatory on himself constantly to devise plans and 
exert his personal efforts for the public good. Such was 
the character of the distinguished manufacturer who hon- 
ored Richmond with his presence nineteen or twenty years 
ago ; such was the character of the men whom he repre- 
sented, and such were the grand designs which they 
sought to accomplish. 

To the enterprising and moneyed descendant of the Pil- 
grim Fathers it was a matter of no little astonishment, 
that the immense water-power of Richmond had been so 
long neglected. He expressed his surprise to a number 
of Virginians, and was at a loss to know why they had 
not, long prior to the period of his visit amongst them, 



108 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

availed themselves of the powerful elemen t that is eter- 
nally gushing and foaming over the falls of James Eiver. 
Innocent man ! He was utterly unconscious of the fact 
that he was " interfering with the beloved institutions of 
the South," and little was he prepared to withstand the 
terrible denunciations that were immediately showered on 
his head through the columns of the Richmond Eiiquirer. 
Few words will suffice to tell the sequel. That negro- 
worshipping sheet, whose hireling policy, for the last four 
and twenty years, has been to support the worthless black 
slave and his tyrannical master at the expense of the free 
white laborer, wrote down the enterprise ! and the noble 
son of New England, abused, insulted and disgusted, 
quietly returned to Massachusetts, and there employed 
his capital in building up the cities of Lowell and Law- 
rence, either of which, in all those elements of material 
and social prosperity that make up the greatness of States, 
is already far in advance of the most important of all the 
seedy and squalid niggervilles in the Old Dominion. Such 
is an inkling of the infamous means that have been resort- 
ed to, from time to time, for the purpose of upholding and 
perpetuating in America the accursed . institution of 
slavery. 

Having in view all the foregoing facts, we were not in 
the least surprised when, while walking through Holly- 
wood Cemetery, in the western suburbs of Richmond, not 
long since, our companion, a Virginian of the true school, 
directed our attention to a monument of some pretentions, 
and exclaimed, " There lie the remains of a man upon 
whose monument should be inscribed in everlasting prom- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE SPATES. 109 

inence the finger of scorn pointing' downward." The reader 
scarcely needs to be told that we were standing at the 

tomb of , who in the opinion of onr friend, 

had, by concentrating within himself the views and pur- 
poses of all the evil spirits in Virginia, greatly retarded 
the abolition of slavery ; so greatly, indeed, as, thereby, 
to throw the State at least fifty years behind her free 
competitors of the North, of the East, and of the West. 
It is to be hoped that Virginia may never give birth to 
another man whose evil influence will so justly entitle him 
to the reprobation of posterity. 

How any rational man in this or any other country, 
with the astounding contrast between Freedom and Sla- 
very ever looming in his view, can offer an apology for 
the existing statism of the South, is to us a most inexpli- 
cable mystery. Indeed, we cannot conceive it possible 
that the conscience of any man, who is really sane, would 
permit him to become the victim of such an egregious 
and diabolical absurdity. Therefore, at this period of our 
history, with the light of the past, the reality of the pre- 
sent, and the prospect of the future, all so prominent 
and so palpable, we infer that every person who sets up 
an unequivocal defence of the institution of slavery, must, 
of necessity, be either a fool, a knave, or a madman. 

It is much to be regretted that the slavocrats look at 
but one side of the question. Of all the fanatics in the 
country, they have, of late, become the most unreasonable 
and ridiculous. Let them deliberately view the subject 
of slavery in all its aspects and bearings, and if they are 
possessed of honest hearts and convincible minds, they 



110 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

will readily perceive the grossness of their past errors, 
renounce their allegiance to a cause so unjust and dis- 
graceful, and at once enroll themselves among the hosts 
of Freedom and the friends of universal Liberty. There 
are thirty-one States in the Union ; let them drop Califor- 
nia, or any other new free State, and then institute fifteen 
comparisons, first comparing New-York with Virginia, 
Pennsylvania with Carolina, Massachusetts with Georgia, 
and so on, until they have exhausted the catalogue. 
Then, for once, let them be bold enough to listen to the 
admonitions of their own souls, and if they do not soon 
start to their feet demanding the abolition of slavery, it 
will only be because they have reasons for suppressing 
their inmost sentiments. Whether we compare the old 
free States with the old slave States, or the new free 
States with the new slave States, the difference, unmis- 
takable and astounding, is substantially the same. All 
the free States are alike, and all the slave States are alike. 
In the former, wealth, intelligence, power, progress, and 
prosperity, are the prominent characteristics ; in the latter, 
poverty, ignorance, embecility, inertia, and extravagance, 
arc the distinguishing features. To be convinced, it is 
only necessary for us to open our eyes and look at facts 
— to examine the statistics of the country, to free ourselves 
from obstinacy and prejudice, and to unbar our minds to 
convictions of truth. Let figures be the umpire. Close 
attention to the preceding and subsequent tables is all we 
ask ; so soon as they shall be duly considered and under- 
stood, the primary object of this work will have been 
accomplished. 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES, 111 

Not content with eating out the vitals of the South, 
slavery, true to the character which it has acquired for 
insatiety and rapine, is beginning to make rapid encroach- 
ments on new territory ; and as a basis for a few remarks 
on the blasting influence which it is shedding over the 
broad and fertile domains of the West, which in accord- 
ance with the views and resolutions offered by the immor- 
tal Jefferson, should have been irrevocably dedicated to 
freedom, we beg leave to call the attention of the reader 
to another presentation of the philosophy of free and slave 
labor. Says the North American and United States Gazette : 

" We have but to compare the States, possessing equal 
natural advantages, in which the two kinds of labor are em- 
ployed, in order to decide with entire confidence as to which 
kind is the more profitable. At the origin of the govern- 
ment, Virginia, with a much larger extent of territory than 
New- York, contained a population of seven hundred and 
fifty thousand, and sent ten representatives to Congress ; 
while New-York contained a population of three hundred 
and forty thousand, and sent six representatives to Con- 
gress. Behold how the figures are reversed. The popu- 
lation of New-York is three and a half millions, represent- 
ed by thirty-three members in Congress ; while the popu- 
lation of Virginia is but little more than one and a half 
millions, represented by thirteen members in Congress. It 
is the vital sap of free labor that makes the one tree so 
thrifty and vigorous, so capable of bearing with all ease 
the fruit of such a population. And it is slave" labor which 
strikes a decadence through the other, drying up many of 
its branches with a fearful sterility, and rendering the 



112 COMI IKISON BETWEEN THE 

rest but scantily fruitful ; really incapable of sustaining 
more. Look at Ohio, teeming with inhabitants, its soil 
loaded with every kind of agricultural wealth, its people 
engaged in every kind of freedom's diversified employ- 
ments, abounding with numberless happy homes, and with 
all the trophies of civilization, and it exhibits the magic 
effect of free labor, waking a wilderness into life and 
beauty ; while Kentucky, with equal or superior natural 
advantages, nature's very garden in this Western world, 
which commenced its career at a much earlier date, and 
was in a measure populous when Ohio was but a slumber- 
ing forest, but which in all the elements of progress, is 
now left far, very far, behind its young rival, shows how 
slave labor hinders the development of wealth among a 
people, and brings a blight on their prosperity. The one 
is a grand and beautiful poem in honor of free labor. The 
other is an humble confession to the world of the inferiority 
of slave labor." 

Equally significant is the testimony of Daniel R. Goodloe, 
of North Carolina, who says : — 

" The history of the United States shows, that while the 
slave States increase in population less rapidly than the 
free, there is a tendency in slave society to diffusion, 
greater than is exhibited by free society. In fact, diffusion, 
or extension of area, is one of the necessities of slavery ; 
the prevention of which is regarded as directly and imme- 
diately menacing to the existence of the institution. This 
arises from the almost exclusive application of slave labor 
to the one occupation of agriculture, and the difficulty, if 
not impossibility, of diversifying employments. Free soci- 



FREE AND THE SLAV! STATES. 113 

ety, on the contrary, has indefinite resources of develop- 
ment within a restricted area. It will far excel slave 
society in the cultivation of the ground — first, on account 
of the superior intelligence of the laborers ; and secondly, 
in consequence of the greater and more various demands 
upon the earth's products, where commerce, manufactures, 
and the arts, abound. Then, these arts of life, by bringing 
men together in cities and towns, and employing them in 
the manufacture or transportation of the raw materials of 
the farmer, give rise to an indefinite increase of wealth 
and population. The confinement of a free people within 
narrow limits seems only to develop new resources of 
wealth, comfort and happiness ; while slave society, pent 
up, withers and dies. It must continually be fed by new 
fields and forests, to be wasted and wilted under the pois- 
onous tread of the slave." 

Were we simply a freesoiler, or anything else less than 
a thorough and uncompromising abolitionist, we should 
certainly tax our ability to the utmost to get up a cogent 
argument against the extension of slavery over any part 
of our domain where it does not now exist ; but as our 
principles are hostile to the institution even where it does 
exist, and, therefore, by implication and in fact, more hos- 
tile still to its introduction into new territory, we forbear 
the preparation of any special remarks on this particular 
subject. 

With regard to the unnational and demoralizing institu- 
tion of slavery, we believe the majority of Northern people 
are too scrupulous. They seem to think that it is enough 
for them to be mere freesoilers, to keep in check the diffu- 



114 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

isivc element of slavery, and to prevent it from crossing 
over the bounds within which it is now regulated by muni- 
cipal law. Eemiss in their national duties, as we contend, 
they make no positive attack upon the institution in the 
Southern States. Only a short while since, one of their 
ablest journals — the North American and United States Ga~ 
zette, published in Philadelphia — made use of the following 
language : — 

" With slavery in the States, we make no pretence of 
having anything politically to do. For better or for worse, 
the system belongs solely to the people of those States ; 
and is separated by an impassable gulf of State sovereignty 
from any legal intervention of ours. We cannot vote it 
down any more than we can vote down the institution of 
caste in Hindostan, or abolish polygamy in the Sultan's, 
dominions. Thus, precluded from all political action in 
reference to it, prevented from touching one stone of the 
edifice, not the slightest responsibility attaches to us as 
citizens for its continued existence. But on the question of 
extending slavery over the free Territories of the United 
States, it is our right, it is our imperative duty to think, 
to feel, to speak and to vote. We cannot interfere to cover 
the shadows of slavery with the sunshine of freedom, but 
we can interfere to prevent the sunshine of freedom from 
being eclipsed by the shadows of slavery. We can inter- 
pose to stay the progress of that institution, which aims 
to drive free labor from its own heritage Kansas should 
be divided up into countless homes for the ownership of 
men who have a right to the fruit of their own labors 
Free labor would make it bud and blosfeom like the rose ; 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 115 

would cover it with beauty, and draw from it boundless 
wealth ; would throng it with population ; would make 
States, nations, empires out of it, prosperous, powerful, 
intelligent and free, illustrating on a wide theatre the 
beneficent ends of Providence in the formation of our gov- 
ernment, to advance and elevate the millions of our race, 
and, like the heart in the body, from its central position, 
sending out on every side, far and near, the vital influences 
of freedom and civilization. May that region, therefore, 
be secured to free labor." 

Now we fully and heartily indorse every line of the lat- 
ter part of this extract ; but, with all due deference to 
our sage cotemporary, we do most emphatically dissent 
from the sentiments embodied in the first part. Pray, 
permit us to ask — have the people of the North no inter- 
est in the United States as a nation, and do they not see 
that slavery is a great injury and disgrace to the whoh 
country? Did they not, in "the days that tried men's 
souls," strike as hard blows to secure the independence of 
Georgia as they did in defending the liberties of Massa- 
chusetts, and is it not notoriously true that the Toryism 
of South Carolina prolonged the war two years at least ? 
Is it not, moreover, equally true that the oligarchs of 
South Carolina have been unmitigated pests and bores to 
the General Government ever since it was organized, and 
that the free and conscientious people of the North are 
virtually excluded from her soil, in consequence of slavery ? 
It is a well-known and incontestlble fact, that the North- 
ern States furnished about two-thirds of all the Ameri- 
can troops engaged in the Eevolutionary War ; and, 



116 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

though they were neither more nor less brave or patri- 
otic than their fellow-soldiers of the South, yet, inasmuch 
as the independence of our country was mainly secured by 
virtue of their numerical strength, we think they ought 
to consider it not only their right but their duty to make 
a firm and decisive effort to save the States which they 
fought to free, from falling under the yoke of a worse ty- 
ranny than that which overshadowed them under the reign 
of King George the Third. Freemen of the North ! we 
earnestly entreat you to think of these things. Hitherto, 
as mere freesoilers, you have approached but half-way to 
the line of your duty ; now, for your own sakes and for 
ours, and for the purpose of perpetuating this glorious 
Republic, which your fathers and our fathers founded in 
septennial streams of blood, we ask you, in all serious- 
ness, to organize yourselves as one man under the banners 
of Liberty, and to aid us in exterminating slavery, which is 
the only thing that militates against our complete aggran- 
dizement as a nation. 

In this extraordinary crisis of affairs, no man can be a 
true patriot without first becoming an abolitionist. (A 
freesoiler is only a tadpole in an advanced state of trans- 
formation ; an abolitionist is the full and perfectly devel- 
oped frog.) And here, perhaps, we may be pardoned for 
the digression necessary to show the exact definition of 
the terms abolish, abolition and abolitionist. We have looked 
in vain for an explanation of the signification of these 
words in any Southern publication ; for no dictionary has 
ever yet been published in the South, nor is there the least 
probability that one ever will be published within her bor- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 117 

ders, until slavery is abolished; but, thanks to Heaven, a 
portion of this continent is what our Revolutionary Fath- 
ers and the Fathers of the Constitution fought and labored 
and prayed to make it— a land of freedom, of power, of 
progress, of prosperity, of intelligence, of religion, of liter- 
ature, of commerce, of science, of arts, of agriculture, of 
manufactures, of ingenuity, of enterprise, of wealth, of 
renown, of goodness, and of grandeur. From that glori- 
ous part of our confederacy— from the North, whence, on 
account of slavery in the South, we are under the humili- 
ating necessity of procuring almost everything that is 
useful or ornamental, from primers to Bibles, from wafers 
to printing-presses, from ladles to locomotives, and from 
portfolios to portraits and pianos — • comes to us a huge 
volume bearing the honored name of Webster — Noah 
Webster, who, after thirty-five years of unremitting toil, 
completed a work which is, we believe, throughout Great 
Britain and the United States, justly regarded as the stan- 
dard vocabulary of the English language — -and in it the 
terms abolish, abolition, and abolitionist, are defined as fol- 
lows :— ■ 

" Abolish, v. t. To make void ; to annul ; to abrogate ; ap- 
plied chiefly and appropriately to establish laws, contracts, rites, 
customs and institutions ; as to abolish laws by a repeal, actual 
er ritual, To destroy or put an end to ; as to abolish idols." 

" Abolition, n. The act of abolishing ; or the state of being 
abolished ; an annulling ; abrogation ; utter destruction ; as the 
abolition of laws, decrees, or ordinances, rites, customs, &c. The 
putting an end to slavery ; emancipation." 

" Abolitionist, n. A person who favors abolition, 01 the im- 
mediate emancipation of slaves." 



US COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

There, gentlemen of the South, you have the definitions 
of the transitive verb abolish and its two derivative nouns, 
abolition and abolitionist ; can you, with the keenest possi- 
ble penetration of vision, detect in either of these words 
even a tittle of the opprobrium which the oligarchs, in their 
wily and inhuman efforts to enslave all working classes 
irrespective of race or color, have endeavored to attach to 
them 1 We know you cannot ; abolition is but another 
name for patriotism, and its other special synonyms are 
generosity, magnanimity, reason, prudence, wisdom, reli- 
gion, progress, justice, and humanity. 

And here, by the way, we may as well explain whom 
we refer to when we speak of gentlemen of the South. 
We say, therefore, that, deeply impressed with the convic- 
tion that slavery is a great social and political evil, a sin 
and a crime, in the fullest sense, whenever we speak of gen- 
tlemen of the South, or of gentlemen anywhere, or at what- 
ever time, or in whatever connection we may speak of 
gentlemen, we seldom allude to slaveholders, for the sim- 
ple reason that, with few exceptions, we cannot conscien- 
tiously recognize them as gentlemen. It is only in those 
rare instances where the crime is mitigated by circum- 
stances over which the slaveholder has had no control, or 
where he himself, convinced of the impropriety, the folly 
and the wickedness of the institution, is anxious to abolish 
it, that we can sincerely apply to him the sacred appella- 
tion in question — an appellation which we would no sooner 
think of applying to a pro-slavery slaveholder, or any other 
pro-slavery man, than we would think of applying it to a 
border-ruflian, a thief, or a murderer. Let it be under- 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 119 

stood, however, that the rare instances of which we speak 
are less rare than many persons may suppose. We 
are personally acquainted with several slaveholders in 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia, 
who have unreservedly assured us that they were dis- 
gusted with the institution, and some of them went so far 
as to say they woul' 5 V -lad to acquiesce in the provision 
of a statute whicn trould make it obligatory on them all 
to manumit their slaves, without the smallest shadow or 
substance of compensation. These, we believe, are the 
sentiments of all the respectable and patriotic slavehold- 
ers, who have eyes to see, and see — ears to hear, and 
hear ; who, perceiving the impoverishing and degrading 
effects of slavery, are unwilling to entail it on their chil- 
dren, and who, on account of their undeviating adherence 
to truth and justice, are, like the more intelligent non- 
slaveholders, worthy of being regarded as gentlemen in 
every sense of the term. Such slaveholders were Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, Madison, and other illustrious Virgin- 
ians, who, in the language of the great chief himself, de- 
clared it among their "first wishes to see some plan adopted 
by which slavery, in this country, may be abolished by 
law." The words embraced within this quotation were 
used by Washington, in a letter to John F. Mercer, dated 
September 9th, IT 8 6— a letter from which we shall quote 
more freely hereafter ; and we think his emphatic use of 
the participle abolish, at that early day, is proof positive 
that the glorious "Father of his Country" is entitled to 
the first place in the calendar of primitive American abo- 
litionists. 



120 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 

It is against slavery on the whole, and against slave- 
holders as a body, that we wage an exterminating war. 
Those persons who, under the infamous slave-laws of the 
South — laws which have been correctly spoken of as a 
" disgrace to civilization," and which must be annulled 
simultaneously with the abolition of slavery— have had 
the vile institution entailed on them contrary to their 
wills, are virtually on our side ; we may, therefore, very 
properly strike them off from the black list of three hun- 
dred and forty-seven thousand slaveholders, who, as a 
body, have shocked the civilized world with their barba- 
rous conduct, and from whose conceited and presumptu- 
ous ranks are selected the officers who do all the legisla- 
tion, town, county, state and national, for (against) five 
millions of poor outraged whites, and three millions of 
enslaved negroes. 

Non-slaveholders of the South ! farmers, mechanics and 
workingmcn, we take this occasion to assure you that the 
slaveholders, the arrogant demagogues whom you have 
elected to offices of honor and profit, have hoodwinked 
you, trifled with you, and used you as mere tools for the 
consummation of their wicked designs. They have pur- 
posely kept you in ignorance, and have, by moulding your 
passions and prejudices to suit themselves, induced you to 
act in direct opposition to your dearest rights and inter- 
ests. By a system of the grossest subterfuge and misre- 
presentation, and in order to avert, for a season, the ven- 
geance that will most assuredly overtake them ere loDg, 
they have taught you to hate the abolitionists, who are 
your best and only true friends. Now, as one of your 



FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES. 



121 



own number, we appeal to you to join us in our patriotic 
endeavors to rescue the generous soil of the South from the 
usurped and desolating control of these political vampires. 
Once and forever, at least so far as this country is con- 
cerned, the infernal question of slavery must be disposed 
of ; a speedy and perfect abolishment of the whole insti- 
tution is the true policy of the South— and this is the 
policy which we propose to pursue. Will you aid us, will 
you assist us, will you be freemen, or will you be slaves ? 
These are questions of vital importance ; weigh them well 
in your minds ; come to a prudent and firm decision, and 
hold yourselves in readiness to act in accordance there- 
with. You. must either be for us or against us— anti- 
slavery or pro-slavery ; it is impossible for you to occupy 
a neutral ground ; it is as certain as fate itself, that if you 
do not voluntarily oppose the usurpations and outrages 
of the slavocrats, they will force you into involuntary 
compliance with their infamous measures. Consider well 
the aggressive, fraudulent and despotic power which they 
have exercised in the affairs of Kanzas ; and remember 
that, if, by adhering to erroneous principles of neutrality 
or non-resistance, you allow them to force the curse of 
slavery on that vast and fertile field, the broad area of all 
the surrounding States and Territories— the whole nation, 
in fact— will soon fall a prey to their diabolical intrigues 
and machinations. Thus, if you are not vigilant, will 
they take advantage of your neutrality, and make you 
and others the victims of their inhuman despotism. Do 
not reserve the strength of your arms until you shall have 
been rendered powerless to strike ; the present is the 



122 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE STATES. 

proper time for action ; under all the circumstances, apa- 
thy or indifference is a crime. First ascertain, as nearly 
as you can, the precise nature and extent of your duty, 
and then, without a moment's delay, perform it in good 
faith. To facilitate you in determining what considera- 
tions of right, justice and humanity require at your hands, 
is one of the primary objects of this work ; and we shall 
certainly fail in our desire if we do not accomplish our 
task in a manner acceptable to God and advantageous to 

man. 

But we are carrying this chapter beyond all ordinary 
bounds ; and yet, there are many important particulars in 
which we have drawn no comparison between the free and 
the slave States. The more weighty remarks which we 
intended to offer in relation to the new States of the West 
and Southwest, free and slave, shall appear in the suc- 
ceeding chapter. With regard to agriculture, and all the 
multifarious interests of husbandry, we deem it quite un- 
necessary to say more. Cotton has been shorn of its 
magic power, and is no longer King ; dried grass, common- 
ly called hay, is, it seems, the rightful heir to the throne. 
Commerce, Manufactures, Literature, and other important 
subjects, shall be considered as we progress. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 123 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

Preliminary to our elucidation of what we conceive to 
be the most discreet, fair and feasible plan for the abolition 
of slavery, we propose to offer a few additional reasons 
why it should be abolished. Among the thousand and one 
arguments that present themselves in support of our posi- 
tion — which, before we part with the reader, we shall en- 
deavor to define so clearly, that it shall be regarded as 
ultra only by those who imperfectly understand it — is the 
influence which slavery invariably exercises in depressing 
the value of real estate ; and as this is a matter in which 
the non-slaveholders of the South, of the West, and of the 
Southwest, are most deeply interested, we shall discuss it 
in a sort of preamble of some length. 

The oligarchs say we cannot abolish slavery without 
infringing on the right of property. Again we tell them 
we do not recognize property in man ; but even if we did, 
and if we were to inventory the negroes at quadruple, the 
value of their last assessment, still, impelled by a sense 
of duty to others, and as a matter of simple justice to our- 
selves, we, the non-slaveholders of the South, would be 
fully warranted in emancipating all the slaves at once, 
and that, too, without any compensation whatever to 



124 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED, 

those who claim to be their absolute masters and owners. 
We will explain. In 1850, the average value per acre, of 
land in the Northern States was $28,01 ; in the North- 
western $11,39 ; in the Southern $5,34 ; and in the South- 
western $6,26. Now, in consequence of numerous natural 
advantages, among which may be enumerated the greater 
mildness of climate, richness of soil, deposits of precious 
metals, abundance and spaciousness of harbors, and super- 
excellence of water-power, we contend that, had it not 
been for slavery, the average value of land in all the 
Southern and Southwestern States, would have been at 
least equal to the average value of the same in the North- 
ern States. We conclude, therefore, and we think the 
conclusion is founded on principles of equity, that you, 
the slaveholders, are indebted to us, the non-slaveholders, 
in the sum of $22,13, which is the difference between 
$28,01 and $5,34, on every acre of Southern soil in our 
possession. This claim we bring against you, because 
slavery, which has inured exclusively to your own benefit, 
if, indeed, it has been beneficial at all, has shed a blight- 
ing influence over our lands, thereby keeping them out of 
market, and damaging every acre to the amount specified. 
Sirs ! are you ready to settle the account ? Let us see 
how much it is. There are in the fifteen slave States, 
346,048 slaveholders, and 544,926,120 acres of land. Now 
the object is to ascertain how many acres are owned by 
slaveholders, and now many by non-slaveholders. Sup- 
pose we estimate five hundred acres as the average landed 
property of each slaveholder ; will that be fair ? We 
think it will, taking into consideration the fact that 114,503 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 125 

of the whole number of slaveholders hold less than five 
slaves each — 68,820 holding only one each. According 
to this hypothesis, the slaveholders own 113,024,000 acres, 
and the non-slaveholders the balance, with the exception 
of about 40,000,000 of acres, which belong to the General 
Government. The case may be stated thus : 

Area of the Slave States 544,926,720 acres. 
c Acres owned by slaveholders. . 173,024,000 
Estimates] Acres owned by the government 40,000,000— 213,021,000 
(Acres owned by non-slaveholders 331,902,720 

Now, chevaliers of the lash, and worshippers of slavery, 
the total value of three hundred and thirty-one million nine 
hundred and two thousand seven hundred and twenty 
acres, at twenty-two dollars and seventy-three cents per 
acre, is seven billion Jive hundred and forty-four million one 
hundred and forty-eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-five 
dollars ; and this is our account against you on a single 
score. Considering how your villainous institution has 
retarded the development of our commercial and manufac- 
turing interests, how it has stifled the aspirations of in- 
ventive genius ; and, above all, how it has barred from us 
the heaveh-born sweets of literature and religion — con- 
cernments too sacred to be estimated in a pecuniary point 
of view — might we not, with perfect justice and propriety, 
duplicate the amount, and still be accounted modest in 
our demands ? Fully advised, however, of your indi- 
gent circumstances, we feel it would be utterly useless 
to call on you for the whole amount that is due us ; we 
shall, therefore, in your behalf, make another draft on the 
fund of non-slaveholding generosity, and let the account, 
meagre as it is, stand as above. Though we have given 



126 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

you all the offices, and you have given us none of the 
benefits of legislation ; though we have fought the battles 
of the South, while you were either lolling in your piazzas, 
or playing the tory, and endeavoring to filch from us our 
birthright of freedom ; though you have absorbed the 
wealth of our communities in sending your own children 
to Northern seminaries and colleges, or in employing Yan- 
kee teachers to officiate exclusively in your own families, 
and have refused to us the limited privilege of common 
schools ; though you have scorned to patronize our mecha- 
nics and industrial enterprises, and have passed to the 
North for every article of apparel, utility, and adornment ; 
and though you have maltreated, outraged and defrauded 
us in every relation of life, civil, social, and political, yet 
we are willing to forgive and forget you, if you will but do 
us justice on a single count. Of you, the introducers, 
aiders and abettors of slavery, we demand indemnification 
for the damage our lands have sustained on account there- 
of ; the amount of that damage is $7,544,148,825 ; and 
now, Sirs, we are ready to receive the money, and if it is 
perfectly convenient to you, we would be glad to have you 
pay it in specie ! It will not avail you, Sirs, to parley or 
prevaricate. We must have a settlement. Our claim is 
just and overdue. We have already indulged you too 
long. Your criminal extravagance has almost ruined us. 
We are determined that you shall no longer play the pro- 
fligate, and fair sumptuously every day at our expense. 
How do you propose to settle ? Do you offer us your ne- 
groes in part payment ? We do not want your negroes. 
We would not have all of them, nor any number of them, 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 121 

even as a gift. We hold ourselves above the disreputa- 
ble and iniquitous practices of buying, selling, and own- 
ing slaves. What we demand is damages in money, or 
other absolute property, as an equivalent for the pecuniary 
losses we have suffered at your hands. You value your 
negroes at sixteen hundred millions of dollars, and propose 
to sell them to us for that sum ; we should consider our- 
selves badly cheated, and disgraced for all time, here and 
hereafter, if we were to take them off your hands at six- 
teen farthiugs ! We tell you emphatically, we are firmly 
resolved never to degrade ourselves by becoming the 
mercenary purchasers or proprietors of human beings. Ex- 
cept for the purpose of liberating them, we would not 
give a handkerchief or a tooth-pick for all the slaves in 
the world. But, in order to show how brazenly absurd 
are the howls and groans which you invariably set up 
for compensation, whenever we speak of the abolition of 
slavery, we will suppose your negroes are worth all you 
ask for them,.and that we arc bound to secure to you every 
cent of the sum before they can become free — in which 
case, our accounts would stand thus : 

Non-slaveholder's account against Slaveholders $-7,544,148,825 

Slaveholder's account against Non-slaveholders 1,600,000,000 

Balance due Non-slaveholders $5,944,148,825 

Now, Sirs, we ask you in all seriousness, Is it not 
true that you have filched from us nearly five times the 
amount of the assessed value of your slaves ? ' Why, then, 
do you still clamor for more ? Is it your purpose to make 
the game perpetual ? Think you that we will ever con- 
tinue to bow at the wave of your wand, that we will bring 



128 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

humanity into everlasting disgrace by licking the hand 
that smites us, and that with us there is no point beyond 
which forbearance ceases to be a virtue ? Sirs, if these be 
your thoughts, you are laboring under a most fatal delu- 
sion. You can goad us no further ; you shall oppress us 
no longer ; heretofore, earnestly but submissively, we 
have asked you to redress the more atrocious outrages 
which you have perpetrated against us ; but what has 
been the invariable fate of our petitions ? With scarcely 
a perusal, with a degree of contempt that added insult to 
injury, you have laid them on the table, and from* thence 
they have been swept into the furnance of oblivion. Hence- 
forth, Sirs, we are demandants, not suppliants. We de- 
mand our rights, nothing more, nothing less. It is for you 
to decide whether we are to have justice peaceably or by 
violence, for whatever consequences may follow, we are 
determined to have it one way or the other. Do you as- 
pire to become the victims of white non-slaveholding ven- 
geance by day, and of barbarous massacre by the negroes 
at night ? Would you be instrumental in bringing upon 
yourselves, your wives, and your children, a fate too hor- 
rible to contemplate ? shall history cease to cite, as an 
instance of unexampled cruelty, the Massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew, because the world — the South — shall have furn- 
ished a more direful scene of atrocity and carnage ? Sirs, 
we would not wantonly pluck a single hair from your 
heads ; but we have endured long, we have endured 
much ; slaves only of the most despicable class would 
endure more. An enumeration or classification of all the 
abuses, insults, wrongs, injuries, usurpations, and oppres- 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 129 

sions, to which you have subjected us, would fill a larger 
volume than this ; it is our purpose, therefore, to speak 
only of those that affect us most deeply. Out of our effects 
your have long since overpaid yourselves for your negroes ; 
and now, Sirs, you must emancipate them — speedily eman- 
cipate them, or we will emancipate them for you ! Every 
non-slaveholder in the South is, or ought to "be, and will 
be, against you. You yourselves ought to join us at once 
in our laudable crusade against " the mother of harlots." 
Slavery has polluted and impoverished your lands ; free- 
dom will restore them to their virgin purity, and add from 
twenty to thirty dollars to the value of every acre. Cor- 
rectly speaking, emancipation will cost you nothing ; the 
moment you abolish slavery, that very moment will the 
putative value of the slave become actual value in the 
soil. Though there are ten millions of people in the South, 
and though you, the slaveholders, are only three hundred 
and forty-seven thousand in number, you have within a 
fraction of one-third of all the territory belonging to the 
fifteen slave States. You have a landed estate of lt3,- 
024,000 acres, the present average market value of which 
is only $5,34 per acre ; emancipate your slaves on Wednes- 
day morning, and on the Thursday following the value of 
your lands, and ours too, will have increased to an aver- 
age of at least $28,01 per acre. Let us see, therefore, 
even in this one particular, whether the abolition of 
slavery will not be a real pecuniary advantage to you. 
The present total market value of all your landed property, 
at $5,34 per acre, is only $923,248,160 ! With the beauty 
and sunlight of freedom beaming on the same estate, it 



130 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

would be worth, at $28,07 per acre, $4,856,873,680 ! The 
former sum, deducted from the latter, leaves a balance of 
$3,933,535,520, and to the full extent of this amount will 
your lands be increased in value whenever you abolish 
slavery ; that is, provided you abolish it before it com- 
pletely " dries up all the organs of increase." Here is a 
more manifest and distinct statement of the case : — 

Estimated value of slaveholders' lands after slavery ) ^, ore >-oo CO n 
, ,,. , , .. , , J i 84,856,/ 83,680 

shall have been abolished 



Present value of slaveholders' lands 923,248,160 

Probable aggregate enhancement of value 83,933,535,520 

Now, Sirs, this last sum is considerably more than twice 
as great as the estimate value of your negroes ; and those 
of you, if any there be, who are yet heirs to sane minds 
and honest hearts, must, it seems to us, admit that the 
bright prospect which freedom presents for a wonderful 
increase in the value of real estate, ours as well as yours, 
to say nothing of the thousand other kindred considerations, 
ought to be quite sufficient to induce all the Southern 
States, in their sovereign capacity, to abolish slavery at 
the earliest practical period. You yourselves, instead of 
losing anything by the emancipation of your negroes — < 
even though we suppose them to be worth every dime of 
$1,600,000,000 — would, in this one particular, the increased 
value of land, realize a net profit of over twenty three hundred 
millions of dollars ! Here are the exact figures : — 

Net increment of value which it is estimated wilK 

accrue to slaveholders' lands in consequence ( 8-3,933,535,520 
of the abolition of slavery - ... ) 

Putative value of the slaves 1,600,000,000 

Slaveholders' estimated net landed profits of eman. 82,333,535.520 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 131 

What is the import of these figures ? They are full of 
meaning. They proclaim themselves the financial inter- 
cessor* for freedom, and, with that open-hearted liberality 
which is so characteristic of the sacred cause in wlio.se 
behalf they plead, they propose to pay you upward of three 
thousand nine hundred millions of dollars for the very 
" property" which you, in all the reckless extravagance 
of your inhuman avarice, could not find a heart to price at 
more than one thousand six hundred millions. In other 
words, your own lands, groaning and languishing under 
the monstrous burden of slavery, announce their willing- 
ness to pay you all you ask for the negroes, and offer you, 
besides, a bonus of more than twenty-three hundred 
millions of dollars, if you will but convert those lands into 
free soil ! Our lands, also, cry aloud to be spared from 
the further pollutions and desolations of slavery ; and now, 
Sirs, we want to know explicitly whether, or not, it is your 
intention to heed these lamentations of the ground ? We 
want to know whether you are men or devils — whether 
you are entirely selfish and cruelly dishonest, or whether 
you have any respect for the rights of others. We, the 
non-slaveholders of the South, have many very important 
interests at stake — interests which, heretofore, you have 
steadily despised and trampled under foot, but which, 
henceforth, we shall foster and defend in utter defiance of. 
all the unhallowed influences which it is possible for you, 
or any other class of slaveholders or slavebreeders to bring 
against us? Not the least among these interests is our 
landed property, which, to command a decent price, only 
needs to be disencumbered of slavery. 



132 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

In his present condition, we believe man exercises one 
of the noblest virtues with which heaven has endowed him, 
when, without taking any undue advantage of his fellow- 
men, and with a firm, unwavering purpose to confine his 
expenditures to the legitimate pursuits and pleasures of 
life, he covets money and strives to accumulate it. Enter- 
taining this view, and having no disposition to make an 
improper use of money, we are free to confess that we have 
a greater penchant for twenty-eight dollars than for five ; 
for ninety than for fifteen ; for a thousand than for one 
hundred. South of Mason and Dixon's line we, the non- 
slaveholders, have 331,902,120 acres of land, the present 
average market value of which, as previously stated, is 
only $5,34 per acre ; by abolishing slavery we expect to 
enhance the value to an average of at least $28,01 per acre, 
and thus realize an average net increase of wealth of more 
than seventy-five hundred millions of dollars. The hope of 
realizing smaller sums has frequently induced men to per- 
petrate acts of injustice ; we can see no reason why the 
certainty of becoming immensely rich in real estate, or 
other property, should make us falter in the performance 
of a sacred duly. 

As illustrative of our theme, a bit of personal history 
may not be out of place in this connection. Only a few 
months have elapsed since we sold to an elder brother an 
interest we held in an old homestead which was willed to 
us many years ago by our dear departed father. The tract 
of land, containing two hundred acres, or thereabouts, is 
situated two and a half miles west of Mocksville, the cap- 
ital of Davie county, North Carolina, and is very nearly 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 133 

equally divided by Bear Creek, a small tributary of the 
South Yadkin. More than one-third of this tract — on which 
we have plowed, and hoed, and harrowed, many a long- 
summer without ever suffering from the effects of coup de 
soldi — is under cultivation ; the remaining portion is a well- 
timbered forest, in which, without being very particular, 
we counted, while hunting through it not long since, sixty- 
three different kinds of indigenous trees — to say nothing 
of either coppice, shrubs or plants — among which the 
hickory, oak, ash, beech, birch, and black walnut, were 
most abundant. No turpentine or rosin is produced in our 
part of the State ; but there are, on the place of which we 
speak, several species of the genus Pinus, by the light of 
whose flammable knots, as radiated on the contents of 
some half-dozen old books, which, by hook or by crook, had 
found their way into the neighborhood, we have been ena- 
bled to turn the long winter evenings to our advantage, 
and have thus partially escaped from the prison-grounds of 
those loathsome dungeons of illiteracy in which it has been 
the constant policy of the oligarchy to keep the masses, 
the non-slaveholding whites and the negroes, forever con- 
fined. The fertility of the soil may be inferred from the 
quality and variety of its natural productions ; the meadow 
and the bottom, comprising, perhaps, an area of forty 
acres, are hardly surpassed by the best lands in the valley 
of the Yadkin. A thorough examination of the orchard 
will disclose the fact that considerable attention has been 
paid to the selection of fruits ; the buildings are tolerable ; 
the water is good. Altogether, to be frank, and nothing 
more, it is, for its size, one of the most desirable farms in 



134 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

the county, and will, at any time, command the maximum 
price of land in Western Carolina. Our brother, anxious 
to become the sole proprietor, readily agreed to give us 
the highest market price, which we shall publish by-and- 
bye. While reading the Baltimore Sun, the morning after 
we had made the sale, our attention was allured to a para- 
graph headed " Sales of Real Estate," from which, among 
other significant items, we learned that a tract of land 
containing exactly two hundred acres, and occupying a 
portion of one of the rural districts in the southeastern 
part of Pennsylvania, near the Maryland line, had been 
sold the week before, at one hundred and five dollars and fifty 
cents per acre. Judging from the succinct account given 
in the Sun, we are of the opinion that, with regard to fer- 
tility of 'soil, the Pennsylvania tract always has been, is 
now, and perhaps always will be, rather inferior to the one 
under special consideration. One is of the same size as the 
other ; both are used for agricultural purposes ; in all 
probability the only essential difference between them is 
this : one is blessed with the pure air of freedom, the other 
is cursed with the malaria of slavery. For our interest in 
the old homestead we received a nominal sum, amounting 
to an average of precisely five dollars and sixty cents per acre. 
No one but our brother, who was keen for the purchase, 
would have given us quite so much. 

And, now, pray let us ask, what does this narrative 
teach ? We shall use few words in explanation ; there is 
an extensive void, but it can be better filled with reflection. 
The aggregate value of the one tract is $21,100 ; that of 
the other is only $1,120 ; the difference is $19,980. We 



HOW SLAVERY CAM BE ABOLISHED. 135 

contend, therefore, in view of all the circumstances de- 
tailed, that the advocates and retainers of slavery, have, 
to all intents and purposes, defrauded our family out of 
this last-mentioned sum. In like manner, and on the same 
basis of deduction, we contend that almost every non- 
slaveholder, who either is or has been the owner of real 
estate in the South, would, in a court of strict justice, be 
entitled to damages — the amount in all cases to be de- 
termined with reference to the quality of the land in ques- 
tion. We say this because, in violation of every principle 
of expediency, justice, and humanity, and in direct oppo- 
sition to our solemn protests, slavery was foisted upon us, 
and has been thus far perpetuated, by and through the 
diabolical intrigues of the oligarchs, and by them alone ; 
and furthermore, because the very best agricultural lands 
in the Northern States being worth from one hundred to 
one hundred and seventy-five dollars per acre, there is no 
possible reason, except slavery, why the more fertile and 
congenial soil of the South should not be worth at least 
as much. If, on this principle, we could ascertain, in the 
matter of real estate, the total indebtedness of the slave- 
holders to the non-slaveholders, we should doubtless find 
the sum quite equivalent to the amount estimated on a 
preceding page — $1,544,148,825. 

"We have recently conversed with two gentlemen who, 
to save themselves from the poverty and disgrace of 
slavery, left North Carolina six or seven years ago, and 
who are now residing in the territory of Minnesota, where 
they have accumulated handsome fortunes. One of them 
had traveled extensively in Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, 



136 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

Indiana, and other adjoining States ; and, according to 
his account, and we know him to be a man of veracity, it 
is almost impossible for persons at a distance, to form a 
proper conception of the magnitude of the difference be- 
tween the current value of lands in the Free and the Slave 
States of the West. On one occasion, embarking at 
Wheeling, he sailed down the Ohio ; Virgina and Ken- 
tucky on the one side, Ohio and Indiana on the other. He 
stopped at several places along the river, first on the right 
bank, then on the left, and so on, until he arrived at Evans- 
ville ; continuing his trip, he sailed down to Cairo, thence 
up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Des Moines ; having 
tarried at different points along the route, sometimes in 
Missouri, sometimes in Illinois. Wherever he landed on 
free soil, he found it from one to two hundred per cent, 
more valuable than the slave soil on the opposite bank. 
If, for instance, the maximum price of land was eight dol- 
lars in Kentucky, the minimum price was sixteen in Ohio ; 
if it was seven dollars in Missouri, it was fourteen in Illi- 
nois. Furthermore, he assured us, that, so far as he could 
learn, two years ago, when he traveled through the States 
of which we speak, the range of prices of agricultural 
lands, in Kentucky, was from three to eight dollars per 
acre ; in Ohio, from sixteen to forty ; in Missouri, from 
two to seven ; in Illinois, from fourteen to thirty ; in Ar- 
kansas, from one to four ; in Iowa, from six to fifteen. 

In all the old slave States, as is well known, there are 
vast bodies of land that can be bought for the merest 
trifle. We know an enterprising capitalist in Philadel- 
phia, who owns in his individual name, in the State of 



nOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 137 

Virginia, one hundred and thirty thousand acres, for which he 
paid only thirty-seven and a half cents per acre ! Some years 
ago, in certain parts of North Carolina, several large 
tracts were purchased at the rate of twenty-five cents per 
acre ! 

Hiram Berdan, the distinguished inventor, who has fre- 
quently seen freedom and slavery side by side, and who 
is, therefore, well qualified to form an opinion of their re- 
lative influence upon society, says : 

" Many comparisons might be drawn between the free and the 
slave States, either of which should be sufficient to satisfy any 
man that slavery is not only ruinous to free labor and enterprise, 
but injurious to morals, and blighting to the soil where it exists. 
The comparison between the States of Michigan and Arkansas, 
which were admitted into the Union at the same time, will fairly 
illustrate the difference and value of free and slave labor, as well 
as the difference of moral and intellectual progress in a free and 
in a slave State. 

In 183G these young Stars were admitted into the constella- 
tion of the Union. Michigan, with one-half the extent of terri- 
tory of Arkansas, challenged her sister State for a twenty years' 
race, and named as her rider, ' Neither slavery, nor involuntary 
servitude, unless for the punishment of crime, shall ever be tole- 
rated in this State.' Arkansas accepted the challenge, and 
named as her rider, ' The General Assembly shall have no power 
to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent 
of the owners.' Thus mounted, these two States, the one free 
and the other slave, started together twenty years ago, and now, 
having arrived at the end of the proposed race, let us review and 
mark the progress of each. Michigan comes out in 1856 with 
three times the population of slave Arkansas, with five times 
the assessed value of farms, farming implements and machinery, 
and with eight times the number of public schools." 

In the foregoing part of our work, we have drawn com- 



138 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

parisons between the old free States and the old slave 
States, and between the new free States and the new slave 
States ; had we sufficient time and space, we might 
with the most significant results, change this method of 
comparison, by contrasting the new free States with the 
old slave States. Can the slavocrats compare Ohio with 
Virginia, Illinois with Georgia, or Indiana with South Car- 
olina, without experiencing the agony of inexpressible 
shame ? If they can, then indeed has slavery debased 
them to a lower deep than we care to contemplate. Here- 
with we present a brief contrast, as drawn by a Maryland 
abolitionist, between the most important old slave State 
and the most important new free State : 

'' Virginia was a State, wealthy and prosperous, when Ohio was 
a wilderness belonging to her. She gave that territory away, 
and what is the result 1 Ohio supports a population of two mil- 
lion souls, and the mother contains but one and a half millions ; 
yet Virginia is one-third larger than the Buckeye State. Virginia 
contains 61.000 square miles, Ohio but 40,000. The latter sus- 
tains 50 persons to the square mile, while Virginia gives employ- 
ment to but 25 to the square mile. Notwithstanding Virginia's 
superiority in years and in soil — for she grows tobacco, as well 
as corn and wheat — notwithstanding her immense coal-fields, and 
her splendid Atlantic ports, Ohio, the infant State, had 21 repre- 
sentatives in Congress in 1850, while Virginia had but 13 — the 
latter having commenced in the Union with 10 Congressmen. 
Compare the progress of these States, and then say, what is it but 
Free Labor that has advanced Ohio ? and to what, except slavery, 
can we attribute the non-progression of the Old Dominion ?" 

As a striking illustration of the selfish and debasing 
influences which slavery exercises over the hearts and 
minds of slaveholders themselves, we will here state the 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 139 

J* 

fact that, when we, the non-slaveholders, remonstrate 
against the continuance of such a manifest wrong and in- 
humanity — a system of usurpation and outrage so obvi- 
ously detrimental to our interests — they fly into a terrible 
passion, exclaiming, among all sorts of horrible threats, 
which are not unfrequently executed, "It's none of your 
business !" — meaning to say thereby that their slaves do 
not annoy us, that slavery affects no one except the mas- 
ters and their chattels personal, and that we should give 
ourselves no concern about it, whatever ! To every man of 
common sense and honesty of purpose the preposterous- 
ness of this assumption is so evident, that any studied 
attempt to refute it would be a positive insult. "Would it 
be none of our business, if they were to bring the small-pox 
into the neighborhood, and, with premeditated design, let 
" foul contagion spread ?" Or, if they were to throw a 
pound of strychnine into a public spring, would that be 
none of our business ? Were they to turn a pack of mad 
dogs loose on the community, would we be performing the 
part of good citizens by closing ourselves within doors 
for the space of nine days, saying nothing to anybody ? 
Small-pox is a nuisance ; strychnine is a nuisance ; mad 
dogs are a nuisance ; slavery is a nuisance ; slaveholders 
are a nuisance, and so are slave-breeders ; it is our 
business, nay, it is our imperative duty, to abate nui- 
sances ; we propose, therefore, with the exception of 
strychnine, which is the least of all these nuisances, to 
exterminate this catalogue from beginning to end. 

We mean precisely what our words express, when we 
say we believe thieves are, as a general rule, less amena- 



140 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

ble to the moral law than slaveholders ; and here is the 
basis of our opinion : Ordinarily, thieves wait until we 
acquire a considerable amount of property, and then they 
steal a dispensable part of it ; but they deprive no one of 
physical liberty, nor do they fetter the mind ; slaveholders, 
on the contrary, by clinging' to the most barbarous relic 
of the most barbarous age, bring disgrace on themselves, 
their neighbors, and their country, depreciate the value 
of their own and others' lands, degrade labor, discourage 
energy and progress, prevent non-slaveholders from accu- 
mulating wealth, curtail their natural rights and privi- 
leges, doom their children to ignorance, and all its atten- 
dant evils, rob the negroes of their freedom, throw a 
damper on every species of manual and intellectual enter- 
prise, that is not projected under their own roofs and for 
their own advantage, and, by other means equally at 
variance with the principles of justice, though but an in- 
significant fractional part of the population, they consti- 
tute themselves the sole arbiters and legislators for the 
entire South. Not merely so ; the thief rarely steals from 
more than one man out of an hundred ; the slaveholder de- 
frauds ninety and nine, and the hundredth does not escape 
him. Again, thieves steal trifles from rich men ; slave- 
holders oppress poor men, and enact laws for the perpetu- 
ation of their poverty. Thieves practice deceit on the 
wise ; slaveholders take advantage of the ignorant. 

We contend, moreover, that slaveholders are more crim- 
inal than common murderers. We know all slaveholders 
would not wilfully imbue their hands in the blood of their 
fellow-men ; but it is a fact, nevertheless, that all slave- 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 141 

holders are under the shield of a perpetual license to mur- 
der. This license they have issued to themselves. Ac- 
cording to their own infamous statutes, if the slave raises 
his hand to ward off an unmerited blow, they are permit- 
ted to take his life with impunity. We are personally 
acquainted with three ruffians who have become actual 
murderers under circumstances of this nature. One of 
them killed two negroes on one occasion ; the other two 
have murdered but one each. Neither of them has ever 
been subjected to even the preliminaries of a trial ; not 
one of them has ever been arrested ; their own private 
explanations of the homicides exculpated them from all 
manner of blame in the premises. They had done noth- 
ing wrong in the eyes of the community. The negroes 
made an effort to shield themselves from the tortures of a 
merciless flagellation, and were shot dead on the spot* 
Their murderers still live, and are treated as honorable 
members of society ! No matter how many slaves or free 
negroes may witness the perpetration of these atrocious 
homicides, not one of them is ever allowed to lift up his 
voice in behalf of his murdered brother. In the South, 
negroes, whether bond or free, are never, under any cir- 
cumstances, permitted to utter a syllable under oath, ex- 
cept for or against persons of their own color ; their tes- 
timony against white persons is of no more consequence 
than the idle zephyr of the summer. 

We shall now introduce four tables of valuable and in- 
teresting statistics, to which philosophic and discrimina- 
ting readers will doubtless have frequent occasions to 
refer. Tables 22 and 23 will show the area of the several 



142 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

States, in square miles and in acres, and the number of 
inhabitants to the square mile in each State ; also the 
grand total, or the average, of every statistical column ; 
tables 24 and 25 will exhibit the total number of inhabi- 
tants residing in each State, according to the census of< 
1850, the number of whites, the number of free colored, 
and the number of slaves. The recapitulations of these 
tables will be followed by a complete list of the number 
of slaveholders in the United States, showing the exact 
number in each Southern State, and in the District of 
Columbia. Most warmly do we commend all these statis- 
tics to the studious attention of the reader. Their lan- 
guage is more eloquent than any possible combination of 
Eoman vowels and consonants. We have spared no pains 
in arranging them so as to express at a single glance the 
great truths of which they are composed ; and we doubt 
not that the plan we have adopted will meet with general 
approbation. Numerically considered, it will be perceived 
that the slaveholders are, in reality, a very insignificant 
class. Of them, however, we shall have more to say here- 
after. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



143 



TABLE NO. XXII. 



AREA OF THE FREE STATES. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania... 
Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Square Miles- 



155 

4 

55 

33 

50 

31 

7 

56. 

9 : 

8, 

47, 

39, 

46, 

1, 

10, 

53, 



980 
,674 
405 
,809 
914 
,766 
,800 
,243 
280 
320 
000 
964 
000 
306 
212 
924 



99,827,200 

2,991.360 | 

35,359,200 

21,637,760 

32,584,960 

20,330,240 

4,992,000 

35,995,520 

5,939,200 

5,324,800 

30,080,000 

26,576,960 

29,440,000 

835,840 

6,535,680 

34,511,360 



612,597 I 392,062,082 



Inhabitants to 
square mile. 

.59 
79.33 
15.37 
29.24 

3.78 

18.36 

127.50 

7.07 
34.20 
58.84 
65.90 
49.55 
50.26 
112.97 
30.76 

5.66 



21,91 



TABLE NO. XXIII. 

AREA OF THE SLAVE STATES. 



Status. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi. . . . 

Missouri.. 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Square Miles. 


Acres. 


Inhabit'nts to 
square mile. 


50,722 


32,027,490 


15.21 


52,198 


33,406,720 


4.02 


2,120 


1,356,800 


43.18 


59,268 


37.931,520 


1.48 


58,000 


37,120,000 


15.62 


37,680 


24,115,200 


26.07 


41,255 


26,403,2(10 


12.55 


11,124 


7,119.360 


52.41 


47,156 


30.179,840 


12.86 


67,380 


43,123,200 


10.12 


60,704 


32,450,560 


17.14 


29,3*5 


18,806,400 


22.75 


45,600 


29,184,000 


21.99 


237,504 


152,002,560 


.89 


01 ,::•"■' 


39,165,280 


23.17 


851,448 | 


544,926,720 


11.29 



144 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



TABLE NO. XXIV. 

POPULATION OF THE FREE STATES — 1850. 



States. 

California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania... 
Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Whites. 


Free Colored. 


91,635 


962 


363,099 


7,693 


846,034 


5,436 


977,154 


11,262 


191,881 


333 


581,813 


1,356 


985,450 


9,064 


395,071 


2,583 


317,456 


520 


465,509 


23,810 


3,048,325 


49,069 


1,955,050 


25,279 


2,258,160 


53.626 


143,875 


3,670 


313,402 


718 


304,756 


635 


13,233.670 


196,116 



Total. 



TABLE NO. XXV. 

POPULATION OF THE SLAVE STATES- 



-1850. 



States. 


Whites. 


Free 
Colored. 


Slaves. 


Total. 




426,514, 


2,265 


342,844 


771,623 




162,189 


608 


47,100 


209,897 




71,169 


18,073 


2,290 


91,532 


Florida 


47.203 
521,572 


932 
2,931 


39,310 
381,622 


87,445 




906,185 




761,413 


10,011 


210,981 


982 ; 405 




255,491 


17,462 


244,809 


517,762 




417,943 


74,723 


90,368 


583,034 




295,718 


930 


309,878 


606,326 




592,004 


2,618 


87,422 


682,044 


North Carolina.. . 


553,028 


27,463 


288,548 


869,039 


-South Carolina.. . 


274,563 


8,960 


384,984 


668,507 




756,836 


6,422 


239,459 


1,002,717 


Texas 


154,034 
894,800 


397 
54,333 


58,161 
472,528 

3,200,364 


212,592 




1,421,661 




6,184,477 


228,138 


9,612,979 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



145 



RECAPITULATION AREA. 

Square Miles. 

Area of the Slave States 851,448 

Area of the Free States 612,597 



Balances in favor of Slave States.. .238,851 

RECAPITULATION — POPULATION — 1850. 
Whites. 

Population of the Free States 13,233,670 

Population of the Slave States . . . 6,184,477 



Acres. 
544,926,720 
392,062,082 

152,864,638 



Total. 
13,434,922 
9,612,976 

Balances in favor of the Free States 7,049,193 3,821,946 

FREE COLORED AND SLAVE — 1850. 

Free Negroes in the Slave States 228,138 

Free Negroes in the Free States 196,116 

Excess of Free Negroes in the Slave States 32,022 

Slaves in the Slave States 3,200,364 

Free Negroes in the Slave States 228,138 

Aggregate Negro Population of the Slave States in 1850. . . 3,428,502 



THE TERRITORIES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



Indian Territory. 

Kansas 

Minnesota 

Nebraska 

N. Mexico 

Oregon 

Utah 

Washington 

Columbia, Dist. of. 



Area in Square Miles. 

, 71,127 

, 114,798 

166,025 

335,882 

207,007 

185,030 

269,170 

, 123,022 

60 



Population. 



6,077 

61,547 
13,294 
11,380 

♦51,687 

143,985 

* Of the 51,687 inhabitants in the District of Columbia, in 1850, 10,057 were Free 
Colored, and 3,687 were slaves. 

7 



Aggregate of Area and Population, 1,472,121 



146 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



NUMBER OF SLAVEHOLDERS IN THE UNITED STATES 1850. 

Alabama 29,295 

Arkansas , 5 ; 999 

Columbia, District of, 1,477 

Delaware 809 

Florida 3,520 

Georgia 38,456 

Kentucky 38,385 

Louisiana 20,670 

Maryland 16,040 

Mississippi 23,116 

Missouri 19,185 

North Carolina 28,303 

South Carolina 25,596 

Tennessee 33,864 

Texas 7,747 

Virginia 55,063 

Total Number of Slaveholders in the United States 347,525 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS 1850. 

Holders of 1 slave 6^,820 

Holders of 1 and under 5 105,683 

Holders of 5 and under 10 80,765 

Holders of 10 and under 20 54,595 

Holders of 20 and under 50 29,733 

Holders of 50 and under 100 6,196 

Holders of 100 and under 200 1,479 

Holders of 200 and under 300.... 187 

Holders of 300 and under 500 56 

Holders of 600 and under 1,000 9 

Holders of 1,000 and over 2 

Aggregate Number of Slaveholders in the United States 347,525 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 147 

It thus appears that there are in the United States, three 
hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred and twen- 
ty-five slaveholders. But this appearance is deceptive. 
The actual number is certainly less than two hundred 
thousand. Professor De Bow, the Superintendent of the 
Census, informs us that "the number includes slave- 
hirers," and furthermore, that " where the party owns 
slaves in different counties, or in different States, he will 
be entered more than once." Now every Southerner, who 
has any practical knowledge of affairs, must know, and 
does knowj that every New Year's day, like almost every 
other day, is desecrated in the South, by publicly hiring 
out slaves to large numbers of non-slaveholders. The 
slave-owners, who are the exclusive manufacturers of pub- 
lic sentiment, have popularized the dictum that white ser- 
vants, decency, virtue, and justice, are unfashionable ; and 
there are, we are sorry to say, nearly one hundred and 
sixty thousand non-slaveholding sycophants, who have 
subscribed to this false philosophy, and who are giving 
constant encouragement to the infamous practices of 
slaveholding and slave-breeding, by hiring at least one 
slave every year. 

In the Southern States, as in all other slave countries, 
there are three odious classes of mankind ; the slaves 
themselves, who are cowards ; the slaveholders, who are 
tyrants ; and the non-slaveholding slave-hirers, who are 
lickspittles. Whether either class is really entitled to the 
regards of a gentleman is a matter of grave doubt. The 
slaves are pitiable ; the slaveholders are detestable ; the 
slave-hirers are contemptible. 



148 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

With the statistics at our command, it is impossible for 
us to ascertain the exact numbers of slaveholders and non- 
slaveholding slave-hirers in the slave States ; but we have 
data which will enable us to approach very near to the 
facts. The town from which we hail, Salisbury, the capi- 
tal of Rowan county, North Carolina, contains about twen- 
ty-three hundred inhabitants, including* three hundred and 
seventy-two slaves, fifty-one slaveholders, and forty-three 
non-slaveholding slave-hirers. Taking* it for granted that 
this town furnishes a fair relative proportion of all the 
slaveholders, and non-slaveholding slave-hirers in the 
slave States, the whole number of the former, including 
those who have bee%i " entered more than once," is one 
hundred and eighty-eight thousand five hundred and fifty- 
one ; of the latter, one hundred and fifty-eight thousand 
nine hundred and seventy-four ; and, now, estimating that 
there are in Maryland, Virginia, and other grain-growing 
States, an aggregate of two thousand slave-owners, who 
have cotton plantations slocked with negroes in the far 
South, and who have been " entered more than once," we 
find, as the result of our calculations, that the total num- 
ber of actual slaveholders in the Union, is precisely one 
hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and fifty- 
one — as follows : 

Number of actual slaveholders in the United States 186,551 

Number " entered more than once" 2,000 

Number of non-slaveholding slave-hirers 158,974 

Aggregate number, according to De Bow 347,525 

The greater number of non-slaveholding slave-hirers, are 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 149 

a kind of third-rate aristocrats — persons who formerly 
owned slaves, but whom slavery, as is its custom, has 
dragged down to poverty, leaving them, in their false and 
shiftless pride, to eke out a miserable existence over the 
hapless chattels personal of other men. 

So it seems that the total number of actual slave-own- 
ers, including their entire crew of cringing lickspittles, 
against whom we have to contend, is but three hundred 
and forty-five thousand five hundred and twenty-five. 
Against this army for the defense and propagation of sla- 
very, we think it will be an easy matter — independent of 
the negroes, who, in nine cases out of ten, would be de- 
lighted with an opportunity to cut their masters' throats, 
and without accepting of a single recruit from either of 
the free States, England, France or Germany — to muster 
one at least three times as large, and far more respectable 
for its utter extinction. We hope, however, and believe, 
that the matter in dispute may be adjusted without array- 
ing these armies against each other in hostile attitude. 
We desire peace, not war — justice, not blood. Give us 
fair-play, secure to us the right of discussion, the freedom 
of speech, and we will settle the difficulty at the ballot- 
box, not on the battle-ground— by force of reason, not by 
force of arms. But we are wedded to one purpose from 
which no earthly power can ever divorce us. We are de- 
termined to abolish slavery at all hazards — in defiance of 
all the opposition, of whatever nature, which it is possible 
for the slavocrats to bring against us. Of this they may 
take due notice, and govern themselves accordingly. 

Before we proceed further, it may be necessary to call 



150 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

attention to the fact that, though the ostensible proprie- 
torship of the slaves is vested in fewer individuals than 
we have usually counted in our calculations concerning 
them, the force and drift of our statistics remain unim- 
paired. In the main, all our figures are correct. The 
tables which we have prepared, especially, and the reca- 
pitulations of those tables, may be relied on with all the 
confidence that is due to American official integrity ; for, 
as we have substantially remarked on a previous occasion, 
the particulars of which they are composed have been 
obtained from the returns of competent census agents, 
who, with Prof. De Bow as principal, were expressly em- 
ployed to collect them. As for our minor labors in the 
science of numbers, we cheerfully submit them to the can- 
did scrutiny of the impartial critic. 

A majority of the slaveholders with whom we are ac- 
quainted — and we happen to know a few dozen more than 
we care to know — own, or pretend to own, at least fifteen 
negroes each ; some of them are the masters of more than 
fifty each ; and we have had the honor (!) of an introduc- 
tion to one man who is represented as the owner of six- 
teen hundred ! It is said that if all the lands of this lat- 
ter worthy were in one tract, they might be formed into 
two counties of more than ordinary size ; he owns plan- 
tations and woodlands in three cotton-growing States. 

The quantity of land owned by the slaveholder is gene- 
rally in proportion to the number of negroes at his " quar- 
ter ;" the master of only one or two slaves, if engaged in 
agriculture, seldom owns less than three hundred acres ; 
the holder of eight or ten slaves usually owns from a thou- 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 151 

sand to fifteen hundred acres ; five thousand acres are not 
unfrequently found in the possession of the master of fifty 
slaves ; while in Columbia, South Carolina, about twelve 
months ago, a certain noted slaveholder was pointed out 
to us, and reported as the owner of nearly two hundred 
thousand acres in the State of Mississippi. How the great 
mass of illiterate poor whites, a majority of whom are the 
indescribably wretched tenants of these slavocratic land- 
sharks, are specially imposed upon and socially outlawed, 
we shall, if we have time and space, take occasion to ex- 
plain in a subsequent chapter. 

Thus far, in giving expression to our sincere and settled 
opinions, we have endeavored to show, in the first place, 
that slavery is a great moral, social, civil, and political 
ev il — a dire enemy to true wealth and national greatness, 
and an atrocious crime against both God and man ; and, 
in the second place, that it is a paramount ©sly which we 
owe to heaven, to the earth, to America, to humanity, to 
our posterity, to our consciences, and to our pockets, to 
adopt effectual and judicious measures for its immediate 
abolition. The questions now arise, How can the evil be 
averted ? What are the most prudent and practical means 
that can be devised for the abolition of slavery ? In the 
solution of these problems it becomes necessary to deal 
with a multiplicity of stubborn realities. And yet, we can 
see no reason why North Carolina, in her sovereign capa- 
city, may not, with equal ease and success, do what forty- 
five other States of the world have done within the last 
forty-five years. Nor do we believe any good reason exists 
why Virginia should not perform as great a deed in 1859 



152 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

as did New-York in 1199. Massachusetts abolished slav- 
ery in 1180 ; would it not be a masterly stroke of policy 
in Tennessee, and every other slave State, to abolish it in 
or before 1860 ? 

Not, long since, a slavocrat, writing on this subject, said, 
apologetically, " we frankly admit that slavery is a mon- 
strous evil ; but what are we to do with an institution 
which has baffled the wisdom of our greatest statesmen ?" 
Unfortunately for the South, since the days of Washington, 
Jefferson, Madison, and their illustrious compatriots, she 
has never had more than half a dozen statesmen, all told ; 
of mere politicians, wire-pullers, and slave-driving dema- 
gogues, she has had enough, and to spare ; but of states- 
men, in the true sense of the term, she has had, and now 
has, but precious few — fewer just at this time, perhaps, 
than ever before. It is far from a matter of surprise to us 
that slavery has, for such a long period, baffled the " wis- 
dom" of the oligarchy ; but our surprise is destined to cul- 
minate in amazement, if the wisdom of the non-slaveholders 
does not soon baffle slavery. 

From the eleventh year previous to the close of the 
eighteenth century down to the present moment, slavehold- 
ers and slave-breeders, who, to speak naked truth, are, as 
a general thing, unfit to occupy any honorable station in 
life, have, by chicanery and usurpation, wielded all the 
official power of the South ; and, excepting the patriotic 
services of the noble abolitionists above-mentioned, the sole 
aim and drift of their legislation has been to aggrandize 
themselves, to strengthen slavery, and to keep the poor 
whites, the constitutional majority, bowed down in the 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. xo'3 

deepest depths of degradation. We propose to subvert 
this entire system of oligarchal despotism. We think there 
should be some legislation for decent white men, not alorie 
for negroes and slaveholders. Slavery lies at the root of 
all the shame, poverty, ignorance, tyranny and imbecility 
of the South ; slavery must be thoroughly eradicated ; let 
this be done, and a glorious future will await us. 

The statesmen who are to abolish slavery in Kentucky, 
must be mainly and independently constituted by the non- 
slaveholders of Kentucky ; so in every other slave State. 
Past experience has taught us the sheer folly of ever ex- 
pecting voluntary justice from the slaveholders. Their 
illicit intercourse with " the mother of harlots" has been 
kept up so long, and their whole natures have, in conse- 
quence, become so depraved, that there is scarcely a 
spark of honor or magnanimity to be found amongst them. 
As well might one expect to hear highwaymen clamoring 
for a universal interdict against traveling, as to expect 
slaveholders to pass laws for the abolition of slavery. 
Under all the circumstances, it is the duty of the non- 
slaveholders to mark out an independent course for them- 
selves, to steer entirely clear of the oligarchy, and to 
utterly contemn and ignore the many vile instruments of 
power, animate and inanimate, which have been so freely 
and so effectually used for their enslavement. Now is the 
time for them to assert their rights and liberties ; never 
before was there such an appropriate period to strike for 
Freedom in the South. 

Had it not been for the better sense, the purer patriot- 
ism, and the more practical justice of the non-slavehokders, 

7* 



154 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

the Middle States and New England would still be groan- 
ing and groveling under the ponderous burden of slavery ; 
New- York would never have risen above the dishonorable 
level of Virginia ; Pennsylvania, trampled beneath the 
iron-heel of the black code, would have remained the un- 
progressive parallel of Georgia ; Massachusetts would 
have continued till the present time, and Heaven only 
knows how much longer, the contemptible coequal of 
South Carolina. 

Succeeded by the happiest moral effects and the grand- 
est physical results, we have seen slavery crushed be- 
neath the wisdon of the non-slaveholding statesmen of 
the North ; followed by corresponding influences and 
achievements, many of us who have not yet passed the 
meridian of life, are destined to see it equally crushed 
beneath the wisdom of the non-slaveholding Statesmen of 
the South. With righteous indignation, we enter our dis- 
claimer against the base yet baseless admission that 
Louisiana and Texas are incapable of producing as great 
statesmen as Rhode Island and Connecticut. What has 
been done for New Jersey by the statesmen of New Jer- 
sey, can be done for North Carolina by the statesmen of 
North Carolina ; the wisdom of the former State has abol- 
ished slavery ; as sure as the earth revolves on its axis, 
the wisdom of the latter will not do less. 

That our plan for the abolition of slavery, is the best 
that can be devised, we have not the vanity to contend ; 
but that it is a good one, and will do to act upon until a 
better shall have been suggested, we do firmly and con- 
scientiously believe. Though but little skilled in the deli- 



HOTT SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 155 

cate art of surgerj , we have pretty thoroughly probed 
slavery, the frightful tumor ou the body politic, and have, 
we think, ascertained the precise remedies requisite for a 
speedy and perfect cure. Possibly the less ardent friends 
of freedom may object to our prescription, on the ground 
that some of its ingredients are too griping, and that it 
will cost the patient a deal of most excruciating pain. 
But let them remember that the patient is exceedingly 
refractory, that the case is a desperate one, and that dras- 
tic remedies are indispensably necessary. When they 
shall have invented milder yet equally efficacious ones, 
it will be time enough to discontinue the use of ours — 
then no one will be readier than we to discard the infalli- 
ble strong recipe for the infallible mild. Not at the per- 
secution of a few thousand slaveholders, but at the resti- 
tution of natural rights and prerogatives to several mil- 
lions of non-slaveholders, do we aim. 

Inscribed on the banner, which we herewith unfurl to 
the world, with the full and fixed determination to stand 
by it or die by it, unless one of more virtuous efficacy shall 
be presented, are the mottoes which, in substance, embody 
the principles, as we conceive, that should govern us in 
our patriotic warfare against the most subtle and insidi- 
ous foe that ever menaced the inalienable rights and liber- 
ties and dearest interests of America : 
1st. Thorough Organization and Independent Political 

Action on the part of the Non-Slaveholding whites of 

the South. 
2nd. Ineligibility of Slaveholders — Never another vote to 

the Trafficker in Human Flesh. 



156 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

3rd. No Co-operation with Slaveholders in Politics — No 
Fellowship with them in Religion — No Affiliation with 
them in Society. 

4th. No Patronage to Slaveholding Merchants — No Guest- 
ship in Slave-waiting Hotels — No Fees to Slaveholding 
Lawyers — No Employment of Slaveholding Physicians 
— No Audience to Slaveholding Parsons. 

5th. No Recognition of Pro-slavery Men, except as Ruf- 
fians, Outlaws, and Criminals. 

6th. Abrupt Discontinuance of Subscription to Pro-slavery 
Newspapers. 

7th. The Greatest Possible Encouragement to Free White 
Labor. 

8. No more Hiring of Slaves by Non-slaveholders. 

9th. Immediate Death to Slavery, or if not immediate, 
unqualified Proscription of its Advocates during the Pe- 
riod of its Existence. 

10th. A Tax of Sixty Dollars on every Slaveholder for each 
and every Negro in his Possession at the present time, 
or at any intermediate time between now and the 4 th 
of July, 1863 — said Money to be Applied to the trans- 
portation of the Blacks to Liberia, to their Colonization 
in Central or South America, or to their Comfortable 
Settlement within the Boundaries of the United States. 

11 th. An additional Tax of Forty Dollars per annum to be 
levied annually, on every Slaveholder for each and every 
Negro found in his possession after the 4th of July, 
1863 — said Money to be paid into the hands of the Ne- 
groes so held in Slavery, or, in cases of death, to their 
next of kin, and to be used by them at their own option. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 151 

This, then, is the outline of our scheme for the abolition 
of slavery in the Southern States. Let it be acted upon 
with due promptitude, and, as certain as truth is mightier 
than error, fifteen years will not elapse before every foot 
of territory, from the mouth of the Delaware to the embog- 
uing of the Rio Grande, will glitter with the jewels of 
freedom. Some time during this year, next, or the year 
following, let there be a general convention of non-slave- 
holders from every slave State in the Union, to deliberate 
on the momentous issues now pending. First, let them 
adopt measures for holding in restraint the diabolical ex- 
cesses of the oligarchy ; secondly, in order to cast off the 
thraldom which the infamous slave-power has fastened 
upon them, and, as the first step necessary to be taken to 
.regain the inalienable rights and liberties with which they 
were invested by Nature, but of which they have been 
divested by the accursed dealers in human flesh, let them 
devise ways and means for the complete annihilation of 
slavery ; thirdly, let them put forth an equitable and com- 
prehensive platform, fully defining their position, and in- 
viting the active sympathy and co-operation of the mil- 
lions of down-trodden non-slaveholders throughout the 
Southern and Southwestern States. Let all these things 
be done, not too hastily, but with calmness, deliberation, 
prudence, and circumspection ; if need be, let the dele- 
gates to the convention continue in session one or two 
weeks ; only let their labors be wisely and thoroughly per- 
formed ; let them, on Wednesday morning, present to the 
poor whites of the South, a well-digested scheme for the 
reclamation of their ancient rights and prerogatives, and, 



158 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

on the Thursday following, slavery in the United States will 
he worth absolutely less than nothing ; for then, besides be- 
ing so vile and precarious that nobody will want it, it will 
be a lasting reproach to those in whose hands it is lodged. 

Were it not that other phases of the subject admonish 
us to be economical of space, we could suggest more than 
a dozen different plans, either of which, if scrupulously 
carried out, would lead to a wholesome, speedy, and per- 
fect termination of slavery. Under all the circumstances, 
however, it might be diffei^nt for us — perhaps it would 
not be the easiest thing in the world for any body else — 
to suggest a better plan than the one above. Let it, or 
one embodying its principal features, be adopted forth- 
with, and the last wail of slavery will soon be heard, 
growing fainter and fainter, till it dies utterly away, to be 
succeeded by the jubilant shouts of emancipated millions. 

Henceforth, let it be distinctly understood that ownership 
in slaves constitutes ineligibility — that it is a crime, as 
we verily believe it is, to vote for a slavocrat for any office 
whatever. Indeed, it is our honest conviction that all the 
pro-slavery slaveholders, who are alone responsible for the 
continuance of the baneful institution among us, deserve 
to be at once reduced to a parallel with the basest criminals 
that lie fettered within the cells of our public prisons. 
Beyond the power of computation is the extent of the moral, 
social, civil, and political evils which they have brought, 
and are still bringing, on the country. Were it possible 
that the whole number could be gathered together and 
transformed into four equal gangs of licensed robbers, ruf- 
fians, thieves, and murderers, society, we feel assured, 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 159 

would suffer less from their atrocities then than it does 
now. Let the wholesome public sentiment of the non- 
slaveholders be vigilant and persevering in bringing them 
down to their proper level. Long since, and in the most 
unjust and cruel manner, have they socially outlawed the 
non-slaveholders ; now security against further oppression, 
and indemnity for past grievances, make it incumbent on 
the non-slaveholders to cast them into the identical pit' 
that they dug for their betters — thus teaching them how to 
catch a Tartar 1 

At the very moment we write, as has been the case ever 
since the United States have had a distinct national exist- 
ence, and as will always continue to be the case, unless 
right triumphs over wrong, all the civil, political, and other 
offices, within the gift of the South, are filled with negro- 
nursed incumbents from the ranks of that execrable band 
of misanthropes — three hundred and forty-seven thousand 
in number — who, for the most part, obtain their living by 
breeding, buying and selling slaves. The magistrates in 
the villages, the constables in the districts, the commis- 
sioners of the towns, the mayors of the cities, the sheriffs 
of the counties, the judges of the various courts, the mem- 
bers of the legislatures, the governors of the States, the 
representatives and senators in Congress — are all slave- 
holders. Nor does the catalogue of their usurpations end 
here. Through the most heart-sickening arrogance and 
bribery, they have obtained control of the General Govern- 
ment, and all the consuls, ambassadors, envoys extraordi- 
nary and ministers plenipotentiary, who are chosen from 
the South, and commissioned to foreign countries, are 



160 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

selected with special reference to the purity of their pro- 
slavery antecedents. If credentials have ever been issued 
to a single non-slaveholder of the South, we are ignorant 
of both the fact and the hearsay ; indeed, it would be very 
strange if this much abused class of persons were permit- 
ted to hold important offices abroad, when they are not 
allowed to hold unimportant ones at home. 

And, then, there is the Presidency of the United States, 
which office has been held forty-right years by slaveholders 
from the South, and only twenty years by non-slaveholders 
from the North. Nor is this the full record of oligarchal 
obtrusion. On an average, the offices of Secretary of 
State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of the Interior, 
Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of War, Postmaster-Gen- 
eral and Attorney-General, have been under the control of 
slave-drivers nearly two-thirds of the time. The Chief Jus- 
tices and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, the Presidents pro tern, of the Senate, 
and the Speakers of the House of Representatives, have, 
in a large majority of instances, been slave-breeders from 
the Southern side of the Potomac. Five slaveholding Pres- 
idents have been reelected to the chief magistracy of the 
Republic, while no non-slaveholder has ever held the office 
more than a single term. Thus we see plainly that even 
the non-slaveholders of the North, to whose freedom, en- 
ergy, enterprise, intelligence, wealth, population, power, 
progress, and prosperity, our country is almost exclusively 
indebted for its high position among the nations of the 
earth, have been arrogantly denied a due participation in 
the honors of federal office. When " the sum of all villain- 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 161 

ies" shall have ceased to exist, then the rights of the non- 
slaveholders of the North, of the South, of the East, and of 
the West, will be duly recognized and respected ; not before. 

With all our heart, we hope and believe it is the full 
and fixed determination of a majority of the more intelli- 
gent and patriotic citizens of this Republic, that the Pres- 
idential chair shall never again be filled by a slavocrat. 
Safely may we conclude that the doom of the oligarchy is 
already sealed with respect to that important and dignified 
station ; it now behooves us to resolve, with equal firm- 
ness and effect, that, after a certain period during the next 
decade of years, no slaveholder shall occupy any position 
in the Cabinet, that no slave-breeder shall be sent as a di- 
plomatist to any foreign country, that no slave-driver shall 
be permitted to bring further disgrace on either the Senate 
or the House of Representatives, that the chief justices, 
associate justices, and judges of the several courts, the 
governors of the States, the members of the legislatures, 
and all the minor functionaries of the land, shall be free 
from the heinous crime of ownership in man. 

For the last sixty-eight years, slaveholders have been 
the sole and constant representatives of the South, and 
what have they accomplished ? It requires but little time 
and few words, to tell the story of their indiscreet and 
unhallowed performances. In fact, with what we have 
already said, gestures alone would suffice to answer the 
inquiry. We can make neither a more truthful nor em- 
phatic reply than to point to our thinly inhabited States, 
to our fields despoiled of their virgin soil, to the despicable 
price of lands, to our unvisited cities and towns, to our 



1G2 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

vacant harbors and idle water-power, to the dreary ab- 
sence of shipping and manufactories, to our unpensioned 
soldiers of the revolution, to the millions of living monu- 
ments of ignorance, to the poverty of the whites, and to 
the wretchedness of the blacks. 

Either directly or indirectly, are slave-driving dema- 
gogues, who have ostentatiously set up pretensions to 
statesmanship, responsible for every dishonorable weak- 
ness and inequality that exists between the North and the 
South. Let them shirk the responsibility if they can ; but 
it is morally impossible for them to do so. We know 
how ready they have always been to cite the numerical 
strength of the North, as a valid excuse for their inability 
to procure appropriations from the General Government, 
for purposes of internal improvement, for the establish- 
ment of lines of ocean steamers to South American and 
European ports, and for the accomplishment of othe; ob- 
jects. Before that apology ever escapes from their lips 
again, let them remember that the numerical weakness of 
the South is wholly attributable to their own villainous 
statism. Had the Southern States, in accordance with 
the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, abolished slavery at the same time the Northern 
States abolished it, there would have been, long since, 
and most assuredly at this moment, a larger, wealthier, 
wiser, and more powerful population, south of Mason and 
Dixon's line, than there now is north of it. This fact be- 
ing so well established that no reasonable man denies it, 
it is evident that the oligarchy will have to devise an- 
other subterfuge for even temporary relief. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 163 

Until slavery and slaveholders cease to be the only 
favored objects of legislation in the South, the North will 
continue to maintain the ascendency in every important 
particular. With those loathsome objects out of the way, 
it would not take the non-slaveholders of the South more 
than a quarter of a century to bring her up, in all re- 
spects, to a glorious equality with the North ; nor would 
it take them much longer to surpass the latter, which is 
the most vigorous and honorable rival that they have in 
the world. Three quarters of a century hence, if slavery 
is abolished within the next ten years, as it ought to be, 
the South will, we believe, be as much greater than the 
North, as the North is now greater than the South. Three 
quarters of a century hence, if the South retains slavery, 
which God forbid ! she will be to the North much the 
same that Poland is to Russia, that Cuba is to Spain, or 
that Ireland is to England. 

What we want and must have, as the only sure means 
of attaining to a position worthy of Sovereign States in 
this eminently progressive and utilitarian age, is an ener- 
getic, intelligent, enterprising, virtuous, and unshackled 
population ; an untrammeled press, and the Freedom of 
Speech. For ourselves, as white people, and for the ne- 
groes and other persons of whatever color or condition, 
we demand all the rights, interests and prerogatives, that 
are guarantied to corresponding classes of mankind in the 
North, in England, in France, in Germany, or in any other 
civilized and enlightened country. Any proposition that 
may be offered conceding less than this demand, will be 
promptly and disdainfully rejected. 



164 HOW SLAVERY CAN EE ABOLISHED. 

Speaking of the non-slaveholders of the South, George 
M. Weston, a zealous co-laborer in the cause of Freedom, 
says : — 

" The non-slaveholding whites of the South, being not less 
than seven-tenths of the whole number of whites, would seem 
to be entitled to some enquiry into their actual condition ; and 
especially, as they have no real political weight or consideration 
in the country, and little opportunity to speak for themselves. 
I have been for twenty years a reader of Southern newspapers, 
and a reader and hearer of Congressional debates ; but, in all 
that time, I do not recollect ever to have seen or heard these 
non-slaveholding whites referred to by Southern ' gentlemen,' as 
constituting any part of what they call ' the South.' When the 
rights of the South, or its wrongs, or its policy, or its interests, 
or its institutions, are spoken of, reference is always intended to 
the rights, wrongs, policy, interests, and institutions of the three 
hundred and forty-seven thousand slaveholders. Nobody gets 
into Congress from the South but by their direction ; nobody 
speaks at Washington for any Southern interest except theirs. 
Yet there is, at the South, quite another interest than theirs ; 
embracing from two to three times as many white people ; and, 
as we shall presently see, entitled to the deepest sympathy and 
commiseration, in view of the material, intellectual, and moral 
privations to which it has been subjected, the degradation to 
which it has already been reduced, and the still more fearful 
degradation with which it is threatened by the inevitable opera- 
tion of existing causes and influences." 

The following extract, from a paper on " Domestic 
Manufactures in the South and West," published by M. 
Tarver, of Missouri, may be appropriately introduced in 
this connection : — 

" The non-slaveholders possess, generally, but very small means, 
and the land which they possess is almost universally poor, and 
so sterile that a scanty subsistence is all that can be derived from 






HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 165 

its cultivation ; and the more fertile soil, being in the possession 
of the slaveholders, must ever remain out of the power of those 
who have none. This state of things is a great drawback, and 
bears heavily upon and depresses the moral energies of the 
poorer classes. The acquisition of a respectable position in the 
scale of wealth appears so difficult, that they decline the hopeless 
pursuit, and many of them settle down into habits of idleness, and 
become the almost passive subjects of all its consequences. And 
I lament to say that I have observed of late years, that an evi- 
dent deterioration is taking place iu this part of the population, 
the younger portion of it being less educated, less industrious, 
and in every point of view less respectable than their ancestors." 

Equally worthy of attention is the testimony of Gov, 
Hammond, of South Carolina, who says :— 

" According to the best calculation, which, in the absence of 
statistic facts, can be made, it is believed, that of the three hun- 
dred thousand white inhabitants of South Carolina, there are not 
less than fifty thousand whose industry, such as it is, and com- 
pensated as it is, is not, in the present condition of things, and 
does not promise to be hereafter, adequate to procure them, 
honestly, such a support as every white person is, and feels him- 
self entitled to. And this, next to emigration, is, perhaps, the 
heaviest of the weights that press upon the springs of our pros- 
perity. Most of these now follow agricultural pursuits, in fee- 
ble, yet injurious competition with slave labor. Some, perhaps, 
not more from inclination, than from the w T ant of due encourage- 
ment, can scarcely be said to work at all. They obtain a preca- 
rious subsistence, by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, 
sometimes by plundering fields or folds, and too often by what is, 
in its effects, far worse — trading with slaves, and seducing them 
to plunder for their benefit." 

Conjoined with the sundry plain straightforward facts 
which have issued from our own pen, these extracts show 
conclusively that immediate and independent political 



166 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

action on the part of the non-slaveholding whites of the 
South, is, with them, a matter, not only of positive duty, 
but also of the utmost importance. As yet, it is in their 
power to rescue the South from the gulf of shame and 
guilt, into which slavery has plunged her ; but if they do 
not soon arouse themselves from their apathy, this power 
will be wrenched from them, and then, unable to resist the 
strong arm of the oppressor, they will be completely de- 
graded to a social and political level with the negroes, 
whose condition of servitude will, in the meantime, be- 
come far more abject and forlorn than it is now. 

In addition to the reasons which we have already as- 
signed why no slavocrat should, in the future, be elected 
to any office whatever, there are others that deserve to be 
carefully considered. Among these may be mentioned the 
illbreeding and the ruffianism of slaveholding officials. 
Tedious indeed would be the task to enumerate all the 
homicides, duels, assaults and batteries, and other crimes, 
of which they are the authors in the course of a single 
year. To the general reader their career at the seat of 
government is well known ; there, on frequent occasions, 
choking with rage at seeing their wretched sophistries 
scattered to the winds by the sound, logical reasoning of 
the champions of Freedom, they have overstepped the 
bounds of common decency, vacated the chair of honora- 
ble controversy, and, in the most brutal and cowardly 
manner, assailed their unarmed opponents with bludgeons, 
bowie knives and pistols. Compared with some of their 
barbarisms at home, however, their frenzied onslaughts aj 
the national Capital have been but the simplest brei 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 161 

of civil deportment ; and it is only for the purpose of 
avoiding personalities that we now refrain from divulging 
a few instances of the unparalleled atrocities which they 
have perpetrated in legislative halls South of the Poto- 
mac. Nor is it alone in the national and State legisla- 
tures that they substitute brute force for genteel behavior 
and acuteness of intellect. Neither court-houses nor pub- 
lic streets, hotels nor private dwellings, rum-holes nor 
law-offices, are held sacred from their murderous conflicts. 
About certain silly abstractions that no practical business 
man ever allows to occupy his time or attention, they are 
eternally wrangling ; and thus it is that rencounters, 
duels, homicides, and other demonstrations of personal 
violence, have become so popular in all slaveholding com- 
munities. A few years of entire freedom from the cares 
and perplexities of public life, would, we have no doubt, 
greatly improve both their manners and their morals ; and 
we suggest that it is a Christian duty, which devolves on 
the non-slaveholders of the South, to disrobe them of the 
mantle of office, which they have so long worn with dis- 
grace to themselves, injustice to their constituents, and 
ruin to their country. 

But what shall we say of such men as Botts, Stuart, and 
Macfarland of Virginia ; of Raynor, Morehead, Miller, 
Stanly, Graves, and Graham of North Carolina ; of Davis 
and Hoffman of Maryland ; of Blair and Benton of Mis- 
souri ; of the Marshalls of Kentucky ; and of Etheridge of 
Tennessee ? All these gentlemen, and many others of the 
same school, entertain, we believe, sentiments similar to 
those that were entertained by the immortal Fathers of the 



168 HOW SLAVEBY CAN BE ABOLISHED, 

Republic — that slavery is a great moral, social, civil, and 
political evil, to be got rid of at the earliest practical pe- 
riod — and if they do, in order to secure our votes, it is only 
necessary for them to " have the courage of their opinions," 
to renounce slavery, and to come out frankly, fairly and 
squarely, in favor of freedom. To neither of these patri- 
otic sons of the South, nor to any one of the class to which 
they belong, would we give any offence whatever. In our 
strictures on the criminality of pro-slavery demagogues 
we have had heretofore, and shall have hereafter, no sort 
of reference to any respectable slaveholder — by which we 
mean, any slaveholder who admits the injustice and inhu- 
manity of slavery, and who is not averse to the discussion 
of measures for its speedy and total extinction. Such 
slaveholders are virtually on our side, that is, on the side 
of the non-slaveholding whites, with whom they may very 
properly be classified. On this point, once for all, we desire 
to be distinctly understood ; for it would be manifestly un- 
just not to discriminate between the anti-slavery proprie- 
tor who owns slaves by the law of entailment, and the pro- 
slavery proprietor who engages in the traffic and becomes 
an aider and abettor of the institution from sheer turpitude 
of heart ; hence the propriety of this special disclaimer. 

If we have a correct understanding of the positions 
which they assumed, some of the gentlemen whose names 
are written above, gave, during the last presidential cam- 
paign, ample evidence of their unswerving devotion to the 
interests of the great majority of the people, the non-slave- 
holding whites ; and it is our unbiassed opinion that a 
more positive truth is no where recorded in Holy Writ, 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 169 

than Kenneth Raynor uttered, when he said, in substance, 
that the greatest good that could happen to this country 
would be " the complete overthrow of slave-driving democ- 
racy," alias the nigger party, which has for its head and 
front the Ritchies and Wises of Virginia, and for its caudal 
termination the Butlers and Quatlebums of South Carolina. 

And this, by the way, is a fit occasion to call attention 
to the fact, that slave-driving Democrats have been the 
perpetrators of almost every brutal outrage that ever dis- 
graced our halls of legislation. Of countless instances of 
assault and battery, affrays, and fatal rencounters, that 
have occurred in the court-houses, capitols, and other pub- 
lic buildings in the Southern States, we feel safe in say- 
ing that the aggressor, in at least nine cases out of ten, 
has been a negro-nursed adherent of modern, miscalled 
democracy. So, too, the challenger to almost every duel 
has been an abandoned wretch, who, on many occasions 
during infancy, sucked in the corrupt milk of slavery from 
the breasts of his father's sable concubines, and who has 
never been known to become weary of boasting of a fact 
that invariably impressed itself on the minds of his audi- 
tors or observers, the very first moment they laid their 
eyes upon him, namely, that he was a member of the Dem- 
ocratic party. Brute violence, however, can hardly be 
said to be the worst characteristic of the slave-driving 
Democrat ; his ignorance and squalidity are proverbial ; 
his senseless enthusiasm is disgusting. 

Peculiarly illustrative of the material of which sham dem- 
ocracy is composed was the vote polled at the Five Points 
precinct, in the city of New-York, on the 4th of November, 



ltO nOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

1856, when James Buchanan was chosen President by a 
minority of the people. We will produce the figures : 

Five Points Precinct, New-York City, 1856. 

Votes cast for James Buchanan 574 

" " " John C. Fremont 16 

" " " Millard Fillmore 9 

It will be recollected that Col. Fremont's majority over 
Buchanan, in the State of New-York, was between seven- 
ty-eight and seventy-nine thousand, and that he ran ahead 
of the Fillmore ticket to the number of nearly one hundred 
and fifty-one thousand. We have not the shadow of a 
doubt that he is perfectly satisfied with Mr. Buchanan's 
triumph at the Five Points, which, with the exception of 
the slave-pens in Southern cities, is, perhaps, the most vile 
and heart-sickening locality in the United States. 

One of the most noticeable and commendable features 
of the last general election is this : almost every State, 
whose inhabitants have enjoyed the advantages of free 
soil, free labor, free speech, free presses, and free schools, 
and who have, in consequence, become great in numbers, 
in virtue, in wealth, and in wisdom, voted for Fremont, 
the Republican candidate, who was pledged to use his 
influence for the extension of like advantages to other 
parts of the country. On the other hand, with a single 
honorable exception, all the States which " have got to 
hating everything with the prefix Free, from free negroes 
down and up through the whole catalogue — free farms, 
free labor, free society, free will, free thinking, free chil- 
dren, and free schools," and which have exposed their cit- 
izens to all the perils of numerical weakness, absolute ig- 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. Ill 

norance, and hopeless poverty, voted for Buchanan, the 
Democratic candidate, who, in reply to the overtures of 
his slave-driving partisans, had signified his willingness 
to pursue a policy that would perpetuate and disseminate, 
without limit, the multitudinous evils of human bondage. 
Led on by a huckstering politician, whose chief voca- 
tion, at all times, is the rallying of ragamuffins, shoulder- 
strikers, and liquor-house vagabonds, into the ranks of his 
party, and who, it is well known, receives from the agents 
of the slave power, regular installments of money for this 
infamous purpose, a Democratic procession, exceedingly 
motley and unrefined, marched through the streets of one 
of the great cities of the North, little less than a fortnight 
previous to the election of Mr. Buchanan to the Presi- 
dency ; and the occasion gave rise, on the following day, 
to a communication in one of the morning papers, from 
which we make the following pertinent extract : 

" While the Democratic procession was passing through the 
streets of this city, a few daj's since, I could not but think how 
significant the exultation of that ignorant multitude was of the 
ferocious triumphs which would he displayed if ever false Dem- 
ocracy should succeed in throwing the whole power of the coun- 
try into the hands of the Slave Oligarch}'. It is melancholy to 
think that every individual in that multitude, ignorant and de- 
praved thougli he may he, foreign perhaps in his birth, and utterly 
unacquainted with the principles upon which the welfare of the 
country depends, and hostile it may be to those principles, if he 
does understand them, is equal in the power which he may exer- 
cise by his vote to the most intelligent and upright man in tne 
community. 

" Of this, indeed, it is useless to complain. We enjoy our 
freedom with the contingency of its loss by the acts of a numeri- 
cal majority. Tt behooves all men, therefore, who have a regard 



172 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

to the common good, to look carefully at the influences which 
may pervert the popular mind ; and this, I think, can only be 
done by guarding against the corruption of individual character. 
A man who has nothing but political business to attend to — I 
mean the management of elections — ought to be shunned by all 
honest men. If it were possible, he should have the mark of Cain 
put upon him, that he might be known as a plotter against the 
welfare of his country." 

That less than three per cent, of those who voted for Col. 
Fremont, that only about five per cent, of those who gave 
their suffrages to Mr. Fillmore, and that more than eighteen 
per cent, of those who supported Mr. Buchanan, were per- 
sons over one and twenty years of age who could not read 
and write, are estimates which we have no doubt are not 
far from the truth, and which, in the absence of reliable 
statistics, we venture to give, hoping, by their publicity, 
to draw closer attention to the fact, that the illiterate for- 
eigners of the North, and the unlettered natives of the 
South, were cordially united in their suicidal adherence to I 
the Nigger party. With few exceptions, all the intelligent 
non-slaveholders of the South, in concert with the more 
respectable slaveholders, voted for Mr. Fillmore ; certain 
rigidly patriotic persons of the former class, whose hearts 
were so entirely with the gallant Fremont that they refused ] 
to vote at all — simply because they did not dare to express 
their preference for him — form the exceptions to which we 
allude. 

Though the Whig, Democratic, and Know-Nothing news- 
papers, in all the States, free and slave, denounced Col. 
Fremont as an intolerant Catholic, it is now generally con- : j 
ceded that he was n where supported by the peculiar J 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 113 

friends of Pope Pius IX. The votes polled at the Five 
Points precinct, which is almost exclusively inhabited by- 
low Irish Catholics, show how powerfully the Jesuitical 
influence was brought to bear against him. At that de- 
lectable locality, as we have already shown, the timid 
Sage of Wheatland received five hundred and seventy- four 
votes ; whereas the dauntless Finder of Empire received 
only sixteen. 

True to their instincts for Freedom, the Germans, gene- 
rally, voted the right ticket, and they will do it again, and 
continue to do it. With the intelligent Protestant element 
of the Fatherland on our side, we can well afford to dis- 
pense with the ignorant Catholic element of the Emerald 
Isle. In the influences which they exert on society, there 
is so little difference between Slavery, Popery, and Negro- 
driving Democracy, that we are not at all surprised to see 
them going hand in hand in their diabolical works of inhu- 
manity and desolation. 

There is, indeed, no lack of evidence to show that the 
Democratic party of to-day is simply and unreservedly a 
sectional Nigger party. On the 15th of December, 1856, 
but a few weeks subsequent to the appearance of a scan- 
dalous message from an infamous governor of South Caro- 
lina, recommending the reopening of the African slave 
trade, Emerson Etheridge of Tennessee — honor to his 
name ! — submitted, in the House of Representatives, the 
following timely resolution : — 

" Resolved, That this House regard all suggestions or proposi- 
tions of every kind, by whomsoever made, for a revival of the 
6lave trade, as shocking to the moral sentiments of the enlightened 



174 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

portion of mankind, and that any act on the part of Congress, 
legislating for, conniving at, or legalizing that horrid and inhuman 
traffic, would justly subject the United States to the reproach and 
execration of all civilized and Christian people throughout the 
world." 

Who voted for this resolution ? and who voted against 
it ? Let the yeas and nays answer ; they are on record, 
and he who takes the trouble to examine them will find 
that the resolution encountered no opposition worth men- 
tioning, except from members of the Democratic party. 
Scrutinize the yeas and nays on any other motion or reso- 
lution affecting the question of slavery, and the fact that 
a majority of the members of this party have uniformly 
voted for the retention and extension of the " sum of all 
villanies," will at once be apparent. 

For many years the slave-driving Democrats of the South 
have labored most strenuously, both by day and by night 
■ — we regret to say how unsuccessfully — to point out abo- 
lition proclivities in the Whig and Know-Nothing parties, 
the latter of which is now buried, and deservedly, so deep 
in the depths of the dead, that it is quite preposterous to 
suppose it will ever see the light of resurrection. 

For its truckling concessions to the slave power, the 
Whig party merited defeat, and defeated it was, and that, 
too, in the most decisive and overwhelming manner. But 
there is yet in this party much vitality, and if its friends 
will reorganize, detach themselves from the burden of 
slavery, espouse the cause of the white man, and hoist the 
fair flag of freedom, the time may come, at a day by no 
means remote, when their hearts will exult in triumph 
over the ruins of miscalled Democracy. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 115 

It is not too late, however, for the Democratic party to 
secure to itself a pure renown and an almost certain per- 
petuation of its power. Let it at once discard the worship 
of slavery, and do earnest battle for the principles of free- 
dom, and it will live victoriously to a period far in the 
future. On the other hand, if it does not soon repudiate 
the fatal heresies which it has incorporated into its creed, 
its doom will be inevitable. Until the black flag- entirely 
disappears from its array, we warn the non-slaveholders 
of the South to repulse and keep it at a distance, as they 
would the emblazoned skull and cross-bones that float 
them from the flag 1 of the pirate. 

With regard to the sophistical reasoning which teaches 
that abolitionists, before abolishing slavery, should com- 
pensate the slaveholders for all or any number of the ne- 
groes in their possession, we have, perhaps, said quite 
enough ; but wishing to brace our arguments, in every im- 
portant particular, with unetpaivocal testimony from men 
whom we are accustomed to regard as models of political 
sagacity and integrity — from Southern men as far as pos- 
sible — we herewith present an extract from a speech de- 
livered in the Virginia House of Delegates, January 20, 
1832, by Charles James Faulkner, whose sentiments, as 
then and there expressed, can hardly fail to find a re- 
sponse in the heart of every intelligent, upright man : — 

li But. Sir, it is said that society having conferred this property 
on the slaveholder, it cannot now take it from him without an 
adequate compensation, by which is meant full value. I may be 
singular in the opinion, but I defy the legal research of the House 
to point me to a principle recognized by the law. even in the or- 
dinary course of its adjudications, where the community pays 



176 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

for property which is removed or destroyed because it is a nui- 
sance, and found injurious to that society. There is, I humbly 
apprehend, no such principle. There is no obligation upon 
society to continue your right one moment after it becomes in- 
jurious to the best interests of society ; nor to compensate you 
for the loss of that, the deprivation of which is demanded by 
the safety of the State, and in which general benefit you partici- 
pate as members of the community. Sir, there is to my mind a 
manifest distinction between condemning private property to be 
applied to some beneficial public purpose, and condemning or re- 
moving private property which is ascertained to be a positive 
wrong to society. It is a distinction which pervades the whole 
genius of the law ; and is founded upon the idea, that any man 
who holds property injurious to the peace of that society of 
which he is a member, thereby violates the condition upon the 
observance of which his right to the property is alone guaran- 
tied. For property of the first class condemned, there ought to 
be compensation ; but for property of the latter class, none can 
be demanded upon principle, none accorded as matter of right. 

"It is conceded that, at this precise moment of our legislation, 
slaves are injurious to the interests and threaten the subversion 
and ruin of this Commonwealth. Their present number, their 
increasing number, all admonish us of this. In different terms, 
and in more measured language, the same fact has been conceded 
by all who have yet addressed this House. ' Something must be 
done? emphatically exclaimed the gentleman from Dinwiddie ; 
and I thought I could perceive a response to that declaration, in 
the countenance of a large majority of this body. And why must 
something be done 1 Because if not, says the gentleman from 
Campbell, the throats of all the white people of Virginia will be 
cut. No, says the gentleman from Dinwiddie — ' The whites can- 
not be couquered— the throats of the blacks will be cut.' It is a 
trifling difference, to be sure, Sir, and matters not to the argu- 
ment. For the fact is conceded, that one race or the other must 
be exterminated. 

'• Sir, such being the actual condition of this Commonwealth, 
I ask if we would not be justified now, supposing all considera- 
tions of policy and humanity concurred, without even a moment's 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. lit 

delay, in staving off this appalling and overwhelming calamity ? 
Sir, if this immense negro population were now in arms, gather- 
ing into black and formidable masses of attack, would that man 
be listened to, who spoke about property, who prayed you not 
to direct your artillery to such or such a point, for you would de- 
stroy some of his property 1 Sir, to the eye of the Statesman, 
as to the eye of Omniscience, dangers pressing, and dangers that 
must necessarily press, are alike present. With a single glance 
he embraces Virginia now, with the elements of destruction re- 
posing quietly upon her bosom, and Virginia is lighted from one 
extremity to the other with the torch of servile insurrection and 
massacre. It is not sufficient for him that the match is not yet 
applied. It is enough that the magazine is open, and the match 
will shortly be applied. 

'' Sir, it is true in national as it is in private contracts, that loss 
and injury to one party may constitute as fair a consideration as 
gain to the other. Does the slaveholder, while he is enjoying 
his slaves, reflect upon the deep injury and incalculable loss 
which the possession of that property inflicts upon the true in- 
terests of the country 1 Slavery, it is admitted, is an evil — it is 
an institution which presses heavily against the best interests of 
the State. It banishes free white labor, it exterminates the me- 
chanic, the artisan, the manufacturer. It deprives them of occu- 
pation. It deprives them of bread. „ It converts the energy of a 
community into indolence, its power into imbecility, its efficiency 
into weakness. Sir, being thus injurious, have we not a right to 
demand its extermination 1 shall society suffer, that the slave- 
holder may continue to gather his crop of human flesh ? What 
is his mere pecuniary claim, compared with the great interests of 
the common weal ? Must the country languish, droop, die, that 
the slaveholder may flourish? Shall all interests be subservient 
to one — all rights subordinate to those of the slaveholder 1 Has 
not the mechanic, have not the middle classes their rights — rights 
incompatible with the existence of slavery ? 

'' Sir, so great and overshadowing arc the evils of slavery — so 
sensibly arc they felt by those who have traced the causes of our 
national decline — so perceptible is the poisonous operation of its 
principles in the varied and diversified interests of this Common- 

8* 



178 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

wealth, that all, whose minds are not warped by prejudice or in- 
terest, must admit that the disease has now assumed that mortal 
tendency, as to justify the application of any remedy which, un- 
der the great law of State necessity, we might consider advisa- 
ble." 

From the abstract of our plan for the abolition of sla- 
very, it will be perceived that, so far from allowing slave- 
holders any compensation for their slaves, we are, and 
we think justly, in favor of imposing on them a tax of 
sixty dollars for each and every negro now in their pos- 
session, as also for each and every one that shall be born 
to them between now and the 4th of July, 1863 ; after 
which time, we propose that they shall be taxed forty dol- 
lars per annum, annually, for every person by them held 
in slavery, without regard to age, sex, color, or condition 
— the money, in both instances, to be used for the sole 
advantage of the slaves. As an addendum to this propo- 
sition, we would say that, in our opinion, if slavery is not 
totally abolished by the year 1869, the annual tax ought 
to be increased from forty to one hundred dollars ; and 
furthermore, that if the institution does not then almost 
immediately disappear under the onus of this increased 
taxation, the tax ought in the course of one or two years 
thereafter, to be augmented to such a degree as will, in 
harmony with other measures, prove an infallible death- 
blow to slavery on or before the 4th of July, 1876. 

At once let the good and true men of this country, the 
patriot sons of the patriot fathers, determine that the sun 
which rises to celebrate the centennial anniversary of our 
national independence, shall not set on the head of any 
slave within the limits of our Republic. Will not the 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 119 

non-slaveholders of the North, of the South, of the East, 
and of the AVest, heartily, unanimously sanction this pro- 
position ? Will it not be cheerfully indorsed by many of 
the slaveholders themselves? Will any respectable man 
enter a protest against it? On the 4th of July, 181G — 
sooner, if we can — let us make good, at least so far as we 
are concerned, the Declaration of Independence, which 
was proclaimed in Philadelphia on the 4th of July, 11 7G 
— that " all men are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
tain inalienable rights ; that among these, are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights, 
governments are instituted among men, deriving their 
just powers from the consent of the governed ; that 
whenever any form of government becomes destructive 
of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to 
abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its 
foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers 
in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect 
their safety and happiness." In purging our land of the 
iniquity of negro slavery, we will only be carrying on the 
great work that was so successfully commenced by our 
noble sires of the Revolution ; some future generation 
may possibly complete the work by annulling the last and 
least form of oppression. 

To turn the slaves away from their present homes — 
away from all the property and means of support which 
their labor has mainly produced, would be unpardonably 
cruel — exceedingly unjust. Still more cruel and unjust 
would it be, however, to the non-slaveholding whites no 
less than to the negroes, to grant further toleration to the 



180 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

existence of slavery. In any event, come what will, 
transpire what may, the institution must be abolished. 
The evils, if any, which are to result from its abolition, 
cannot, by any manner of means, be half as great as the 
evils which are certain to overtake us in case of its con- 
tinuance. The perpetuation of slavery is the climax of 
iniquity. 

Two hundred and thirty-seven years have the negroes 
in America been held in inhuman bondage. During the 
whole of this long period they have toiled unceasingly 
from the gray of dawn till the dusk of eve, for their 
cruel task-masters, who have rewarded them with scanty 
allowances of the most inferior qualities of victuals and 
clothes, with heartless separations of the tenderest ties of 
kindred, with epithets, with scoldings, with execrations, 
and with the lash — and, not unfrequently, with the fatal 
bludgeon or the more deadly weapon. From the labor of 
their hands, and from the fruit of their loins, the human- 
mongers of the South have become wealthy, insolent, cor- 
rupt, and tyrannical. In reason and in conscience the 
slaves might claim from their masters a much larger sum 
than we have proposed to allow them. If they were to 
demand an equal share of all the property, real and per- 
sonal, which has been accumulated or produced through 
their efforts, Heaven, we believe, would recognize them as 
honest claimants. 

Elsewhere we have shown, by just and liberal estimates, 
that, on the single score of damages to lands, the slave- 
holders are, at this moment, indebted to the non-slavehold- 
ing whites in the extraordinary sum of $^,544,148,825. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 181 

Considered in connection with the righteous claim of wages 
for services which the negroes might bring against their 
masters, these figures are the heralds of the significant fact 
that, if strict justice could be meted out to all parties in 
the South, the slaveholders would not only be stripped of 
every dollar, but they would become in law as they are in 
reality, the hopeless debtors of the myriads of unfortunate 
slaves, white and black, who are now cringing, and fawn- 
ing, and festering around them. In this matter, however, 
so far has wrong triumphed over right, that the slavehold- 
ers — a mere handful of tyrants, whose manual exercises 
are wholly comprised in the use they make of instruments 
of torture, such as whips, clubs, bowie-knives and pistols 
— have, as the result of a series of acts of their own vil- 
lainous legislation, become the sole and niggardly propri- 
etors of almost every important item of Southern wealth ; 
not only do they own all the slaves — none of whom any 
really respectable person cares to own — but they are also 
in possession of the more valuable tracts of land and the 
appurtenances thereto belonging ; while the non-slavehold- 
ing whites and the negroes, who compose at least nine- 
tenths of the entire population, and who are the actual 
producers of every article of merchandize, animal, vegeta- 
ble, and mineral, that is sold from the South, are most 
wickedly despoiled of the fruits of their labors, and cast 
into the dismal abodes of extreme ignorance, destitution 
and misery. 

For the services of the blacks from the 20th of August, 
1620, up to the 4th of July, 1863 — an interval of precisely 
two hundred and forty-two years ten months and fourteen 



182 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

days — their masters, if unwilling-, ought, in our judgment, 
to be compelled to grant them their freedom, and to pay 
each and every one of them at least sixty dollars cash in 
hand. The aggregate sum thus raised would amount to 
about two hundred and forty-five millions of dollars, which 
is less than the total market value of two entire crops of 
cotton — one-half of which sum would be amply sufficient 
to land every negro in this country on the coast of Liberia, 
whither, if we had the power, we would ship them all 
within the next six months. As a means of protection 
against the exigencies which might arise from a sudden 
transition from their present homes in America to their 
future homes in Africa, and for the purpose of enabling 
them there to take the initiatory step in the walks of civ- 
ilized life, the remainder of the sum — say about one hun- 
dred and twenty-two millions of dollars — might, very 
properly, be equally distributed amongst them after their 
arrival in the land of their fathers. 

Dr. James Hall, the Secretary of the Maryland Coloniza- 
tion Society, informs us that the average cost of sending 
negroes to Liberia does not exceed thirty dollars each ; 
and it is his opinion that arrangements might be made on 
an extensive plan for conveying them thither at an average 
expense of not more than twenty-five dollars each. 

The American colonization movement, as now systema- 
tized and conducted, is simply an American humane farce. 
At present the slaves are increasing in this country at the 
rate of nearly one hundred thousand per annum ; withiu 
the last ten years, as will appear below, the American 
Colonization Society has sent to Liberia less than five 
thousand negroes. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 



183 



Emigrants sent to Liberia by the American Colonization 
Society, during the ten years ending January 1st, 185?. 



In 1847 39 

In 1848 213 

In 1849 474 

In 1850.... 590 

In 1851..'. 279 

In 1852 568 

In 1853 583 

In 1854 783 

In 1855 207 

In 1856 544 

Total 4280 J 



r Emigrants. 



The average of this total is precisely four hundred and 
twenty-eight, which may be said to be the number of ne- 
groes annually colonized by the society ; while the yearly 
increase of slaves, as previously stated, is little less than 
one hundred thousand ! Fiddlesticks for such coloniza- 
tion ! Once for all, within a reasonably short period, let 
us make the slaveholders do something like justice to 
their negroes by giving each and every one of them his 
freedom, and sixty dollars in current money ; then let us 
charter all the ocean steamers, packets and clipper ships 
that can be had on liberal terms, and keep them con- 
stantly plying between the ports of America and Africa, 
until all slaves shall enjoy freedom in the land of their 
fathers. Under a well-devised and properly conducted 
system of operations, but a few years would be required 
to redeem the United States from the monstrous curse of 
negro slavery. 



184 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

Some few years ago, when certain ethnographical oli- 
garchs proved to'their own satisfaction that the negro was 
an inferior "type of mankind," they chuckled wonder- 
fully, and avowed, in substance, that it was right for the 
stronger race to kidnap and enslave the weaker — that be- 
cause Nature had been pleased to do a trifle more for the 
Caucasian race than for the African, the former, by virtue 
of its superiority, was perfectly justifiable in holding the 
latter in absolute and perpetual bondage ! No system of 
logic could be more antagonistic to the spirit of true 
democracy. It is probable that the world does not con- 
tain two persons who are exactly alike in all respects ; 
yet " all men are endowed by their Creator with certain 
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness." All mankind may or may not be 
the descendants of Adam and Eve. In our own humble 
way of thinking, we are frank to confess, we do not be- 
lieve in the unity of the races. This is a matter, however, 
which has little or nothing to do with the great question 
at issue. Aside from any theory concerning the original 
parentage of the different races of men, facts, material 
and immaterial, palpable and impalpable — facts of the 
eyes and facts of the conscience — crowd around us on 
every hand, heaping proof upon proof, that slavery is a 
shame, a crime, and a curse — a great moral, social, civil, 
and political evil — an oppressive burden to the blacks, 
and an incalculable injury to the whites — a stumbling- 
block to the nation, an impediment to progress, a damper 
on all the nobler instincts, principles, aspirations and en- 
terprises of man, and a dire enemy to every true interest. 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 185 

Waiving all other counts, we have, we think, shown 
to the satisfaction of every impartial reader, that, as else- 
where stated, on the single score of damages to lands, the 
slaveholders are, at this moment, indebted to us, the non- 
slaveholding whites, in the enormous sum of nearly seven- 
ty-six hundred millions of dollars. What shall be done 
with this amount ? It is just ; shall payment be de- 
manded ? No ; all the slaveholders in the country could 
not pay it ; nor shall we ever ask them for even a moiety 
of the amount — no, not even for a clime, nor yet for a 
cent ; we are willing to forfeit every farthing for the sake 
of freedom ; for ourselves we ask no indemnification for 
the past : we only demand justice for the future. 

But, Sirs, knights of bludgeons, chevaliers of bowie- 
knives and pistols, and lords of the lash, we are unwill- 
ing to allow you to swindle the slaves out of all the rights 
and claims to which, as human beings, they are most 
sacredly entitled. Not alone for ourself as an individual, 
but for others also — particularly for five or six millions 
of Southern non-slaveholding whites, whom your iniqui- 
tous statism has debarred from almost all the mental and 
material comforts of life — do we speak, when we say, you 
must emancipate your slaves, and pay each and every one 
of them at least sixty dollars cash in hand. By doing this, 
you will be restoring to them their natural rights, and 
remunerating them at the rate of less than twenty-six 
cents per annum for the long and cheerless period of their 
servitude, from the 20th of August, 1620, when, on James 
Eiver, in Virginia, they became the unhappy slaves of 
heartless masters. Moreover, by doing this you will be 



186 HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 

performing but a simple act of justice to the non-slave- 
holding whites, upon whom the institution of slavery has 
weighed scarcely less heavily than upon the negroes 
themselves. You will also be applying a saving balm to 
your own outraged hearts and consciences, and your chil- 
dren — yourselves in fact — freed from the accursed stain 
of slavery, will become respectable, useful, and honorable 
members of society. 

And now, Sirs, we have thus laid down our ultimatum. 
What are you going to do about it ? Something dread- 
ful, as a matter of course ! Perhaps you will dissolve 
the Union again. Do it, if you dare ! Our motto, and we 
would have you to understand it, is the abolition of slavery, 
and the perpetuation of the American Union. If, by any means, 
you do succeed in your treasonable attempts to take the 
South out of the Union to-day, we will bring her back to- 
morrow — if she goes away with you, she will return with- 
out you. 

Do not mistake the meaning of the last clause of the 
last sentence ; we could elucidate it so thoroughly that no 
intelligent person could fail to comprehend it ; but, for 
reasons which may hereafter appear, we forego the task. 

Henceforth there are other interests to be consulted in 
the South, aside from the interests of negroes and slave- 
holders. A profound sense of duty incites us to make the 
greatest possible efforts for the abolition of slavery ; an 
ecpually profound sense of duty calls for a continuation of 
those efforts until the very last foe to freedom shall have 
been utterly vanquished. To the summons of the righte- 
ous monitor within, we shall endeavor to prove faithful ; 



HOW SLAVERY CAN BE ABOLISHED. 18? 

no opportunity for inflicting a mortal wound in the side 
of slavery shall be permitted to pass us unimproved. 
Thus, terror-engenderers of the South, have we fully and 
frankly defined our position ; we have no modifications 
to propose, no compromises to offer, nothing to retract. 
Frown, Sirs, fret, foam, prepare your weapons, threat, 
strike, shoot, stab, bring on civil war, dissolve the Union, 
nay, annihilate the solar system if you will — do all this, 
more, less, better, worse, anything — do what you will, 
Sirs, you can neither foil nor intimidate us ; our purpose is 
as firmly fixed as the eternal pillars of Heaven ; we have 
determined to abolish slavery, and, so help us God, abo- 
lish it we will ! Take this to bed with you to-night, Sirs, 
and think about it, dream over it, and let us know how 
you feel to-morrow morning. 



188 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 



CHAPTER III. 

SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

If it please the reader, let him forget all that we have 
written on the subject of slavery ; if it accord with his 
inclination, let him ignore all that we may write hereaf- 
ter. We seek not to give currency to our peculiar opin- 
ions ; our greatest ambition, in these pages, is to popular- 
ize the sayings and admonitions of wiser and better men. 
Miracles, we believe, are no longer wrought in this bedev- 
iled world ; but if, by any conceivable or possible super- 
natural event, the great Founders of the Eepublic, Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, Henry, and others, could be reinvested 
with corporeal life, and returned to the South, there is 
scarcely a slaveholder between the Potomac and the 
mouth of the Mississippi, that would not burn to pounce 
upon them with bludgeons, bowie-knives and pistols ! 
Yes, without adding another word, Washington would be 
moiled for what he has already said. "Were Jefferson now 
employed as a professor in a Southern college, he would 
be dismissed and driven from the State, perhaps murdered 
before he reached the border. If Patrick Henry were a 
bookseller in Alabama, though it might be demonstrated 
beyond the shadow of a doubt that he had never bought, 



SOUTHERN TEStffltONT AGAINST SLAVERY. 189 

sold, received, or presented, any kind of literature except 
Bibles and Testaments, he would first be subjected to the 
ignominy of a coat of tar and feathers, and then limited 
to the option of unceremonious expatriation or death. 
How seemingly impossible are these statements, and yet 
how true ! Where do we stand ? What is our faith ? 
Are we a flock without a shepherd ? a people without a 
prophet ? a nation without a government ? 

Has the past, with all its glittering monuments of 
genius and patriotism, furnished no beacon by which we 
may direct our footsteps in the future ? If we but prove 
true to ourselves, and worthy of our ancestry, we have 
nothing to fear ; our Revolutionary sires have devised and 
bequeathed to us an almost perfect national policy. Let 
us cherish, and defend, and build upon, the fundamental 
principles of that polity, and we shall most assuredly 
reap the golden fruits of unparalleled power, virtue and 
prosperity. Heaven forbid that a desperate faction of 
slaveholding criminals should succeed in their infamous 
endeavors to quench the spirit of liberty, which our fore- 
fathers infused into those two sacred charts of our politi- 
cal faith, the Declaration of Independence, and the Consti- 
tution of the United States. Oligarchal politicians are 
alone responsible for the continuance of African slavery in 
the South. For purposes of self-aggrandizement, they 
have kept learning and civilization from the people ; they 
have wilfully misinterpreted the national compacts, and 
have outraged their own consciences by declaring to their 
illiterate constituents, that the Founders of the Republic 
were not abolitionists. When the dark clouds of slavery, 



190 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

error and ignorance shall have passed away, — and we be- 
lieve the time is near at hand when they are to be dissi- 
pated, — the freemen of the South, like those of other sec- 
tions, will learn the glorious truth, that inflexible opposi- 
tion to Human Bondage has formed one of the distin- 
guishing characteristics of every really good or great 
man that our country has produced. 

The principles, aims and objects that actuated the 
framcrs of the Constitution, arc most graphicallly and 
eloquently set forth, in the following extract from a 
speech recently delivered by the Hon. A. H. Cragin, of 
New Hampshire, in the House of ^Representatives : 

" When our forefathers reared the magnificent structure of a 
free Republic in this Western land, they laid its foundations 
broad and deep in the eternal principles of right. Its materials 
were all quarried from the mountain of truth ; and, as it rose 
majestically before an astonished world, it rejoiced the hearts and 
hopes of mankind. Tyrants only cursed the workmen and their 
workmanship. Its architecture was new. It had no model in 
Grecian or Roman history. It seemed a paragon, let down from 
Heaven to inspire the hopes of men, and to demonstrate the favor 
of God to the people of a new world. The builders recognized 
the rights of human nature as universal. Liberty, the great first 
right of man, they claimed for ' all men,' and claiiuecT it from 
' God himself.' Upon this foundation they ejected the temple, 
and dedicated it to Liberty, Humanity, Justice, and Equality. 
Washington was crowned its patron saint." 

" The work completed was the noblest effort of human wisdom. 
Cut it was not perfect. It had one blemish— a little spot— the 
black stain of slavery. The workmen— the friends of freedom 
eve iy where— deplored this. They labored long and prayerfully 
to remove this deformity. They applied all the skill of their 
art ; but they labored in vain. Self-interest was too strong for 
patriotism and love of liberty. The work stood still, and for a 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 101 

time it was doubtful whether the experiment would succeed. The 
blot must remain, or the whole must fail. The workmen revar- 
nished their work, to conceal and cover up the stain. Slavery 
was recognized, but not sanctioned. The word skive or slavery 
must not mar the Constitution. So great an inconsistency must 
not be proclaimed to the world." 

' : All agreed, at that time, that the anomaly should not increase, 
and all concurred in the hope and belief that the blemish would 
gradually disappear. Those noble men looked forward to the 
time when slavery would be abolished in this land of ours. They 
believed that the principles of liberty were so dear to the people, 
that they would not long deny to others what they claimed for 
themselves. They never dreamed that slavery would be extended, 
but firmly believed it would be wholly blotted out. I challenge 
any man to show me a single patriot of the Revolution wlw was in 
favor of slavery, or who advocated its extension. So universal 
was the sentiment of liberty then, that no man, North or South, 
could be found to justify it. Some palliated the evil, and desired 
that it might be gradually extinguished ; but more contemplated 
it as a permanent institution." 

'• Liberty was then the national goddess, worshiped by all the 
people. They sang of liberty, they harangued for liberty, they 
prayed for liberty, and they sacrificed for liberty. Slavery was 
then hateful. It was denounced by all. The British king was 
condemned for foisting it upon the Colonies. Southern men were 
foremost in entering their protest against it. It was then every- 
where regarded as an evil, and a crime against humanity." 

The fact is too palpable to be disguised, that slavery 
and slaveholders have always been a clog and a dead-weight 
upon the government — a disgrace and a curse to humanity. 
The slaveholding Tories of the South, particularly of South 
Carolina, in their atrocious hostility to freedom, prolonged 
the arduous war of the Eevolution from two to three years ; 
and since the termination of that momentous struggle, in 
which, thank LTeaven, they were most signally defeated, 



192 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

it lias been their constant aim and effort to subvert the 
dear-bought liberties which were achieved by the non- 
slaveholding patriots. 

Non-slaveholders of the South ! up to the present period, 
neither as a body, nor as individuals, have you ever had 
an independent existence ; but, if true to yourselves and 
to the memory of your fathers, you, in equal copartnership 
with the non-slaveholders of the North, will soon become 
the honored rulers and proprietors of the most powerful, 
prosperous, virtuous, free, and peaceful nation, on which 
the sun has ever shone. Already has the time arrived for 
you to decide upon what basis you will erect your political 
superstructure. Upon whom will you depend for an equi- 
table and judicious form of constitutional government? 
Whom will 3 r ou designate as models for your future states- 
men ? Your choice lies between the dead and the living — 
between the Washingtons, the Jeffersons and the Madisons 
of the past, and the Quattlebums, the Quitmans and the 
Butlers of the present. We have chosen ; choose ye, 
remembering that freedom or slavery is to be the issue of 
your option. 

As the result of much reading and research, and at the 
expenditure of no inconsiderable amount of time, labor and 
money, we now proceed to make known the anti-slavery 
sentiments of those noble abolitionists, the Fathers of the 
Republic, whose liberal measures of public policy have 
been so criminally perverted by the treacherous advocates 
of slavery. 

Let us listen, in the first place, to the voice of him who 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 193 

was " first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of 
his countrymen," to 

THE VOICE OF WASHINGTON. 

In a letter to John F. Mercer, dated September 9th, 
1186, General Washington says : — 

" I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should 
compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being 
among mjjirst wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery, 
in this country, may be abolished by law." 

In a letter to Robert Morris, dated Mount Vernon, April 
12, 1786, he says :— 

<: I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more 
sincerely than I do to see a plau adopted for the abolition of it. 
But there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can 
be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority ; and this, 
as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." 

He says, in a letter 

i: To the Marquis de Lafayette — April 5th, 1783 : — 
The scheme, my dear Marquis, which you propose as a prece- 
dent, to encourage the emancipation of the black people in this 
country from the state of bondage in which they are held, is a 
striking evidence of the benevolence of your heart. I shall be 
happy to join you in so laudable a work ; but will defer going 
into a detail of the business till I have the pleasure of seeing you." 

In another letter to Lafayette, he says : — 

" The benevolence of your heart, my dear Marquis, is so con- 
spicuous on all occasions, that I never wonder at any fresh proofs 
of it ; but your late purchase of an estate in the Colony of Cay- 
enne, with the view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous 

9 



194 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit 
might diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this 
country." 

In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he further said : — 

" There are in Pennsylvania laws for the gradual abolition of 
slavery, which neither Virginia nor Maryland have at present, but 
which nothing is more certain than they must have, and at a 
period not remote" 

From his last will and testament we make the following 
extract : 

if Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all 
the slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their free- 
dom. To emancipate them during her life would, though earn- 
estly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties, 
on account of their intermixture by marriage with the dower ne- 
groes, as to excite the most painful sensation, if not disagreeable 
consequences, from the latter, while both descriptions are in the 
occupancy of the same proprietor, it not being in my power, un- 
der the tenure by which the dower negroes are held, to manumit 
them." 

It is said that, " when Mrs. Washington learned, from 
the will of her deceased husband, that the only obstacle to 
the immediate perfection of this provision was her right 
of dower, she at once gave it up, and the slaves were 
made free." A man might possibly concentrate within 
himself more real virtue and influence than ever Wash- 
ington possessed, and yet he would not be too good for 
such a wife. 

From the Father of his Country, we now turn to the au- 
thor of the Declaration of Independence. We will listen to 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 195 

THE VOICE OF JEFFERSON. 

On the 39th and 40th pages of his Notes on Virginia, 
Jefferson says : — 

" There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the man- 
ners of our people, produced by the existence of slavery among 
us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpet- 
ual exercise of the most boisterous passions— th« most unremit- 
ting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on 
the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it ; for 
man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all edu- 
cation in him. From his cradle to his grave, he is learning to 
do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive, 
either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the in- 
temperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a 
sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not 
sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the 
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller 
slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions ; and, thus 
nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be 
stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a 
prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by 
such circumstances. And with what execration should the 
Statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus 
to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into des- 
pots and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, 
and the amor patriae of the other ; for if a slave can have a 
country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that 
in which he is born to live and labor for another ; in which he 
must look up the faculties of his nature, contribute, as far as de- 
pends on his individual endeavors, to the evanishment of the hu- 
man race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless 
generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the peo- 
ple, their industry also is destroyed ; for, in a warm climate, no 
man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. 
This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small pro- 
portion, indeed, are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties 



196 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed their only 
firm basis — a conviction in the minds of the people that these 
liberties are of the gift of God ? that they are not to be violated 
but with his wrath 1 Indeed, T tremble for my country when I 
reflect that God is just ; that his justice cannot sleep forever ; 
that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revo- 
lution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among 
possible events ; that it may become probable by supernatural 
interference ! The Almighty has no attribute which can take 
side with us in such a contest." 

While Virginia was yet a Colony, in 1114, she held a 
Convention to appoint delegates to attend the first general 
Congress, which was to assemble, and did assemble, in 
Philadelphia, in September of the same year. Before that 
Convention, Mr. Jefferson made an exposition of the rights 
of British America, in which he said : — 

" The abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of 
desire in these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in 
their infant State. But previous to the enfranchisement of the 
slaves, it is necessary to exclude further importations from Africa. 
Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by 
imposing duties which might amount to prohibition, have been 
hitherto defeated by his Majesty's negative ; thus preferring the 
immediate advantage of a few African corsairs to the lasting in- 
terests of the American States, and the rights of human nature, 
deeply wounded by this infamous practice." 

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, 
of which it is well known he was the author, we find this 
charge against the King of Great Britain : — 

" He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating 
its most sacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a dis- 
tant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying 
them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 19 1 

death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the 
opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian 
King of Great Britain. Determined to keep a market where men 
should be bought and sold, he has at length prostituted his nega- 
tive for suppressing any legislative attempt to prohibit and re- 
strain this execrable commerce." 

Hear him further ; he says : — 

" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are cre- 
ated equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights, governments 
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the 
consent of the governed." 

Under date of August 1th, 1185, in a letter to Dr. Price 
of London, he says : — 

" Northward of the Chesapeake you may find, here and there, 
an opponent of your doctrine, as you may find, here and there, a 
robber and murderer ; but in no great number. Emancipation 
is put into such a train, that in a few years there will be no 
slaves northward of Maryland. In Maryland I do not find such 
a disposition to begin the redress of this enormity, as in Virginia. 
This is the next State to which we may turn our eyes for the 
interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and op- 
pression ; a conflict wherein the sacred side is gaining daily 
recruits from the influx into office of young men grown up, and 
growing up. These have sucked in the principles of liberty, as 
it were, with their mother's milk ; and it is to them I look with 
anxiety to turn the fate of the question." 

In another letter, written to a friend iu 1814, he made 
use of the following 1 emphatic language : — ■ 

" Your favor of July 31st was duly received, and read with pe- 
culiar pleasure. The sentiments do honor to the head and heart 



198 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

of the writer. Mine on the subject of the slavery of negroes 
have long since been in the possession of the public, and time has 
only served to give them stronger root. The love of justice and 
the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and 
it is a reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in 
vain." 

Again, he says : — ■ 

" What an incomprehensible machine is man ! who can endure 
toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication 
of his own liberty ; and the next moment be deaf to all those 
motives whose power supported him through his trial, and in- 
flict on his fellow man a bondage, one hour of which is fraught 
with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to 
oppose." 

Throughout the South, at the present day, especially 
among slaveholders, negroes are almost invariably spoken 
of as " goods and chattels," " property." " human cattle." 
In our first quotation from Jefferson's works, we have 
seen that he spoke of the blacks as citizens. We shall 
now hear him speak of them as brethren. He says : — 

" We must wait with patience the workings of an overruling 
Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of 
these our brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be 
full, when their groans shall have involved Heaven itself in dark- 
ness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress. 
Nothing is more certainly written in the Book of Fate, than that 
this people shall be free." 

In a letter to James Heaton, on this same subject, 
dated May 20, 1826, only six weeks before his death, he 

says : — 

il My sentiments have been forty years before the public. Had 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 199 

I repeated them forty times, they would have only hecome the 
more stale and threadbare. Although I shall not live to see them 
consummated, they will not die with me." 

From the Father of the Declaration of Independence, we 
now turn to the Father of the Constitution. We will 
listen to 

THE VOICE OF MADISON. 

Advocating the abolition of the slave-trade, Mr. Madison 
said : — 

" The dictates of humanity, the principles of the people, the 
national safety and happiness, and prudent policy, require it of 
us. It is to be hoped, that by expressing a national disapproba- 
tion of the trade, we may destroy it, and save our country from 
reproaches, and our posterity from the imbecility ever attendant 
on a country filled with slaves." 

Again, he says : — 

"It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea that there 
can be property in man." 

In the 39th No. of " The Federalist," he says :— 

" The first question that offers itself is, whether the general 
form and aspect of the government be strictly Republican. It is 
evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius 
of the people of America, and with the fundamental principles of 
the Revolution, or with that honorable determination which ani- 
mates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experi- 
ments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." 

In the Federal Convention, he said : — 

"And in the third place, where slavery exists, the Republican 
theory becomes still more fallacious." 



200 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

On another occasion, he says : — 

" "We have seen the mere distinction of color made, in the 
most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive 
dominion ever exercised by man over man." 

THE VOICE OF MONROE. 

In a speech in the Virginia Convention, Mr. Monroe 
said : — 

" We have found that this evil has preyed upon the very vitals 
of the Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States, in which 
it has existed." 

THE VOICE OF HENRY. 

The eloquent Patrick Henry says, in a letter dated Jan- 
uary 18, 1773 :— 

"Is it not a little surprising that the professors of Christianity, 
whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart, in 
cherishing and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a 
practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and 
wrong 1 What adds to the wonder is, that this abominable prac- 
tice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times 
that seem to have pretensions to boast of high improvements in 
the arts and sciences, and refined morality, have brought into 
general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and 
tyranny which our more rude and barbarous, but more honest 
ancestors detested. Is it not amazing that at a time when the 
rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in 
a country above all others fond of liberty — that in such an age 
and in such a country, we find men professing a religion the most 
mild, humane, gentle, and generous, adopting such a principle, as 
repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and 
destructive to liberty? Every thinking, honest man rejects it in 
speculation. How free in practice from conscientious motives ! 
Would any one believe that I am master of slaves of my own 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 201 

purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of 
living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. How- 
ever culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue 
as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and la- 
ment my want of conformity to them. I believe a time will 
come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lament- 
able evil. Everything we can do is to improve it, if it happens 
in our day ; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together 
with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence 
for slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished-for reformation 
to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It is 
the furthest advance we can make towards justice. It is a debt 
we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at vari- 
ance with that law which warrants slavery." 

Again, this great orator says : — 

" It would rejoice my very soul, that every one of my fellow- 
beings was emancipated. We ought to lament and deplore the 
necessity of holding our fellow-men in bondage. Believe me ; 
I shall honor the Quakers for their noble efforts to abolish 
slavery." 

TH,E VOICE OF RANDOLPH. 

The excentric genius, John Randolph, of Roanoke, in a 
letter to William Gibbons, in 1820, says : — 

" With unfeigned respect and regard, and as sincere a depreca- 
tion on the extension of slavery and its horrors, as any other 
man, be him whom he may, I am your friend, in the literal sense 
of that much abused word. I say much abused, because it is ap- 
plied to the leagues of vice and avarice and ambition, instead 
of good will toward man from love of him who is the Prince of 
Peace." 

While in Congress, he said : 

" Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man from 
the North who rises here to defend slavery on principle." 
9* 



202 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

It is well known that he emancipated all his negroes. 
The following lines from his will are well worth perusing 
and preserving : — 

" I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience 
telis me they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a mat- 
ter of the deepest regret to me that the circumstances under 
which I inherited them, and the obstacles thrown in the way by 
the laws of the land, have prevented my emancipating them in 
my life-time, which it is my full intention to do in case I can 
accomplish it." 

THOMAS M. RANDOLPH. 

In an address to the Virginia Legislature, in 1820, Gov. 
Randolph said : — 

" We have been far outstripped by States to whom nature has 
been far less bountiful. It is painful to consider what might 
have been, under other circumstances, the amount of general 
wealth in Virginia." 

THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH. 

In 1832, Mr. Randolph, of Albemarle, in the Legislature 
of Virginia, used the following most graphic and emphatic 
language : — 

" I agree with gentlemen in the necessity of arming the State 
for internal defence. I will unite with them in any effort to re- 
store confidence to the public mind, and to conduce to the sense 
of the safety of our wives and our children. Yet, Sir. I must 
ask upon whom is to fall the burden of this defence 1 Not upon 
the lordly masters of their hundred slaves, who will never turn 
out except to retire with their families when danger threatens. 
No, Sir ; it is to fall upon the less wealthy class of our citizens. 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 203 

chiefly upon the non-slaveholder. I have known patrols turned 
out when there was not a slaveholder among them ; and this is 
the practice of the country. I have slept in times of alarm quiet 
in bed, without having a thought of care, while these individuals, 
owning none of this property themselves, were patrolling under 
a compulsory process, for a pittance of seventy-five cents per 
twelve hours, the very curtilage of my house, and guarding that 
property which was alike dangerous to them and myself. After 
all, this is but an expedient. As this population becomes more 
numerous, it becomes less productive. Your guard must be in- 
creased, until finally its profits will not pay for the expense of 
its subjection. Slavery has the effect of lessening the free popu- 
lation of a country. 

" The gentleman has spoken of the increase of the female slaves 
being a part of the profit. It is admitted ; but no great evil can 
be averted, no good attained, without some inconvenience. It 
may be questioned how far it is desirable to foster and encour- 
age this branch of profit. It is a practice, and an increasing 
practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How 
can an honorable mind, a patriot, and a lover of his country, bear 
to see this Ancient Dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble 
devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, con- 
verted into one grand menagerie, where men are to be reared for 
the market, like oxen for the shambles 1 Is it better, is it not 
worse, than the slave trade— that trade which enlisted the labor 
of the good and wise of every creed, and every clime, to abolish 
it ? The trader receives the slave, a stranger in language, aspect, 
and manners, from the merchant who has brought him from the 
interior. The ties of father, mother, husband, and child, have all 
been rent in twain ; before he receives him, his soul has become 
callous. But here, Sir, individuals whom the master has known 
from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gam- 
bols of childhood, who have been accustomed to look to him for 
protection, he tears from the mother's arms and sells into a 
strange country among strange people, subject to cruel taskmas- 
ters. 

"He has attempted to justify slavery here, because it exists in 
Africa, and has stated that it exists all over the world. Upon 



204 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

the same principle, he could justify Mahometanism, with its plu- 
rality of wives, petty wars for plunder, robbery, and murder, or 
any other of the abominations and enormities of savage tribes. 
Does slavery exist in any part of civilized Europe ? No, Sir, in 
no part of it." 

PEYTON RANDOLPH. 

On the 20th of October, 1774, while Congress was in 
session in Philadelphia, Peyton Eandolph, President, the 
following resolution, among others, was unanimously 
adopted : — 

' : That we will neither import nor purchase any slave imported 
after the first day of December next ; after which time we will 
wholly discontinue the slave-trade, and will neither be concerned 
in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commo- 
dities or manufactures, to those who are concerned in it." 



EDMUND RANDOLPH. 

The Constitution of the United States contains the fol- 
lowing provision : — - 

" No person held to service or labor in another State, under the 
laws thereof, escaping to another, shall, in consequence of any 
law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or 
labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom 
such service or labor may be due." 

To the studious attention of those vandals who contend 
that the above provision requires the rendition of fugitive 
slaves, we respectfully commend the following resolution, 
which, it will be observed, was unanimously adopted : — 

" On motion of Mr. Randolph, the word '■servitude' was struck 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 205 

out; and ' service' unanimously inserted — the former being 
thought to express the condition of slaves, and the latter the ob 
ligation of free persons." — Madison Papers, vol. III., p. 15G9. 



Well done for the Randolphs 



THE VOICE OF CLAY. 

Henry Clay, whom everybody loved, and at the mention 
of whose name the American heart always throbs with 
emotions of grateful remembrance, said, in an address be- 
fore the Kentucky Colonization Society, in 1829 : — 

" It is believed that nowhere in the farming portion of the 
United States would slave-labor be generally employed, if the 
proprietor were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of 
the Southern market, which keeps it up in his own." 

In the United States Senate, in 1850, he used the follow- 
ing memorable words :— 

"I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from Mississippi 
say that he requires, first the extension of the Missouri Compro- 
mise line to the Pacific, and also that he is not satisfied with 
that, but requires, if I understand him correctb,-, a positive pro- 
vision for the admission of slavery South of that line. And now, 
Sir, coming from a slave State, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe 
it to truth, I owe it to the subject to say that no earthly power 
could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduc- 
tion of slavery where it had not before existed, either South or 
North of that line. Coming as I do from a slave State, it is my 
solemn, deliberate and well-matured determination that no 
power, no earthly power, shall compel me to vote for the posi- 
tive introduction of slavery either South or North of that line. 
Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British ancestors for 
the introduction of this institution upon the continent of Ame- 
rica, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present in- 



206 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

habitants of California and of New Mexico, shall reproach us for 
doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us. If 
the citizens of those territories choose to establish slavery, and 
if they come here with Constitutions establishing slavery, I am 
for admitting them with such provisions in their Constitutions ; 
but then it will be their own work, and not ours, and their pos- 
terity will have to reproach them, and not us, for forming Con- 
stitutions allowing the institution of slavery to exist among 
them. These are my views, Sir, and I choose to express them ; 
and I care not how extensively or universally they are known." 

Hear him further ; he says : — 

"So long as God allows the vital current to flow through my 
veins, I will never, never, never, by word, or thought, by mind 
or will, aid in admitting one rood of free territory to the ever- 
lasting curse of human bondage." 

A bumper to the memory of noble Harry of the West ! 



CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Of the great number of good speeches made by members 
of the Republican party during the late Presidential cam- 
paign, it is, we believe, pretty generally admitted that the 
best one was made by Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, at 
the Tabernacle, in New-York City, on the 24th of October, 
1856. From the speech of that noble champion of freedom, 
then and there delivered, we make the following graphic 
extract : — 

t; If there are no manufactures, there is no commerce. In vain 
do the slaveholders go to Knoxville, to Nashville, to Memphis 
and to Charleston, and resolve that tb' will have nothing to do 
with these abolition eighteen millions of Northern people ; that 
they will build their own vessels, manufacture their own goods, 
ship their own products to foreign countries, and break down 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 201 

New-York, Philadelphia and Boston ! Again they resolve and 
reresolve, and yet there is not a single ton more shipped and not 
a single article added to the wealth of the South. But, gentle- 
men, they never invite such men as I am to attend their Conven- 
tions. They know that I would tell them that slavery is the cause 
of their poverty, and that I will tell them that what they are aim- 
ing at is the dissolution of the Union — that they may be prepared 
to strike for that whenever the nation rises. They well know that 
by slave labor the very propositions which they make can never 
be realized ; yet when we show these things, they cry out, ' Oh, 
Cotton is King !' But when we look at the statistics, we find 
that so far from Cotton being King, Grass is King. There are 
nine articles of staple productions which are larger than that of 
cotton in this country." 

" I suppose it does not follow because slavery is endeavoring 
to modify the great dicta of our fathers, that cotton and free 
labor are incompatible. In the extreme South, at New Orleans, 
the laboring men— the stevedores and hackmen on the levee, 
where the heat is intensified by the proximity of the red brick 
buildings, are all white men, and they are in the full enjoyment 
of health. But how about cotton ? I am informed by a friend 
of mine— himself a slaveholder, and therefore good authority — 
that in Northwestern Texas, among the German settlements, who, 
true to their national instincts, will not employ the labor of a 
slave— they produce more cotton to the acre, and of a better 
quality, and selling at prices from a cent to a cent and a half a 
pound higher than that produced by slave labor. This is an ex- 
periment that illustrates what I have always held, that whatever 
is right is expedient." 

THE VOICE OF BENTON. 

In his " Thirty Years' View," Thomas H. Benton says :— 

" My opposition to the extension of slavery dates further back 
than 1844— forty years further back ; and as this is a suitable 
time for a general declaration, and a sort of general conscience 
delivery, I will say that my opposition to it dates from 1804, when 



208 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AOAINST SLAVERY. 

I was a student at law in the State of Tennessee, and studied the 
subject of African slavery in an American book — a Virginia book 
— Tucker's edition of Blackstone's Commentaries." 

Again, in a speech delivered in St. Louis, on the 3rd of 
November, 1856, he says : — 

"I look at white people, and not at black ones ; I look to the 
peace and reputation of the race to which I belong. I look to 
the peace of this land — the world's last hope for a free govern- 
ment on the earth. One of the occasions in which I saw Henry 
Clay rise higher than I thought I ever saw him before, was when 
in the debate on the admission of California, a dissolution was 
apprehended if slavery was not carried into this Territory, where 
it never was. Then Mr. Clay, rising, loomed colossally in the 
Senate of the United States, as he rose declaring that for no 
earthly purpose, no earthly object, could he carry slavery into 
places where it did not exist before. It was a great and proud 
day for Mr. Clay, towards the latter days of his life, and if an art- 
ist could have been there to catch his expression as he uttered 
that sentiment, with its reflex on his face, and his countenance 
beaming with firmness of purpose, it would have been a glorious 
moment in which to transmit him to posterity — his countenance 
all alive and luminous with the ideas that beat in his bosom. 
That was a proud day. I could have wished that I had spoken 
the same words. I speak them now, telling you they were his, 
and adopting them as my own." 

THE VOICE OF MASON. 

Colonel Mason, a leading and distinguished member of 
the Convention that formed the Constitution, from Virginia, 
when the provision for prohibiting the importation of 
slaves was under consideration, said : — 

:: The present question concerns not the importing States alone, 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 209 

but the whole Union. Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. 
The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent 
the emigration of whites who really enrich and strengthen a 
country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. 
Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the 
judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations cannot be re- 
warded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By 
an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes na- 
tional sins by national calamities. He lamented that some of our 
Eastern brethren had, from a lust of gain, embarked in this nefa- 
rious traffic. As to the States being in possession of the right 
to import, this was the case with many other rights, now to be 
properly given up. He held it essential, in every point of view, 
that the General Government should have power to prevent the 
increase of slavery." 

THE VOICE OF MCDOWELL. 

Iu 1832, Gov. McDowell used this language in the Vir- 
ginia Legislature : — 

" Who that looks to this unhappy bondage of an unhappy peo- 
ple, in the midst of our society, and thinks of its incidents or is- 
sues, but weeps over it as a curse as great upon him who inflicts 
as upon him who suffers it 1 Sir, you may place the slave where 
you please — you may dry up, to your uttermost, the fountains of 
his feelings, the springs of his thought — you may close upon his 
mind every avenue of knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial 
night — you may yoke him to your labors, as the ox, which liveth 
only to work and worketh only to live — you may put him under 
any process which, without destroying his value as a slave, will 
debase and crush him as a rational being — you may do this, and 
the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all. It is 
allied to his hope of immortality — it is the etherial part of his 
nature which oppression cannot rend. It is a torch lit up in his 
soul by the hand of Deity, and never meant to be extinguished 
by the hand of man." 



210 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

THE VOICE OF IREDELL. 

In the debates of the North Carolina Convention, Mr. 
Iredell, afterwards a Judge of the United States Supreme 
Court, said : — 

" When the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be 
an event which must be pleasing to every generous mind, and 
every friend of human nature." 

THE VOICE OF PINKNEY. 

William Pinkncy, of Maryland, in the House of Dele- 
gates in that State, in 1189, made several powerful argu- 
ments in favor of the abolition of slavery. Here follows 
a brief extract from one of his speeches : — ■ 

<: Iniquitous and most dishonorable to Maryland, is that dreary 
system of partial bondage which her laws have hitherto sup- 
ported with a solicitude worthy of a better object, and her citi- 
zens by their practice, countenanced. Founded in a disgraceful 
traffic, to which the parent country lent its fostering aid, from 
motives of interest, but which even she would have disdained to 
encourage, had England been the destined mart of such inhuman 
merchandize, its continuance is as shameful as its origin. 

I have no hope that the stream of general liberty will forever 
flow unpolluted through the mire of partial bondage, or that they 
who have been habituated to lord it over others, will not, in time, 
become base enough to let others lord it over them. If they re- 
sist, it will be the struggle of pride aud selfishness, not of princi- 
ple." 

THE VOICE OF LEIGH. 

In the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, Mr. Leigh 
said : — 

tl I thought, till very lately, that it was known to every body 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 211 

that, during the Revolution, and for many years after, the aboli- 
tion of slavery was a favorite to topic with many of our ablest 
Statesmen, who entertained with respect all the schemes which 
wisdom or ingenuity could suggest for its accomplishment." 

THE VOICE OF MARSHALL. 

Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier, said, in the Virginia 
Legislature, in 1832 : — 

K Wherefore, then, object to slavery ? Because it is ruinous to 
the whites — retards improvements, roots out an industrious popu- 
lation, banishes the yeomanry of the country — deprives the spin- 
ner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter, of em- 
ployment and support." 

THE VOICE OF BOLLING. 

Philip A. Boiling, of Buckingham, a member of the Leg- 
islature of Virginia in 1832, said : — 

" The time will come — and it may be sooner than many are 
willing to believe — when this oppressed and degraded race can- 
not be held as they now are — when a change will be effected, 
abhorrent, Mr. Speaker, to you, and to the feelings of every good 
man. 

The wounded adder will recoil, and sting the foot that tram- 
ples upon it. The day is fast approaching, when those who op- 
pose all action upon this subject, and, instead of aiding in devis- 
ing some feasible plan for freeing their country from an acknow- 
ledged curse, cry ' impossible^ to every plan suggested, will curse 
their perverseness, and lament their folly." 

THE VOICE OF CHANDLER. 

Mr. Chandler, of Norfolk, member of the Virginia Legis- 
lature, in 1832, took occasion to say : — 

" It is admitted, by all who have addressed this Ilouse, that 



212 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

slavery is a curse, and an increasing one. That it has been de- 
structive to the lives of our citizens, history, with unerring truth, 
will record. That its future increase will create commotion, can- 
not be doubted." 

THE VOICE OF SUMMERS. 

Mr. Summers, of Kanawha, member of the Legislature 
of Virginia, in 1832, said : — 

" The evils of this system cannot be enumerated. It were un- 
necessary to attempt it. They glare upon us at every step. 
When the owner looks to his wasted estate, he knows and feels 
them." 

THE VOICE OF PRESTON. 

In the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832, Mr. Preston 
said : — 

" Sir, Mr. Jefferson, whose hand drew the preamble to the 
Bill of Rights, has eloquently remarked that we had invoked for 
ourselves the benefit of a principle which we had denied to 
others. He saw and felt that slaves, as men, were embraced 
within this principle." 

THE VOICE OF FREMONT. 

John Charles Fremont, one of the noblest sons of the 
South, says : — 

" I heartily concur in all movements which have for their ob- 
ject to repair the mischiefs arising from the violation of good 
faith in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. I am opposed to 
slavery in the abstract, and upon principles sustained and made 
habitual by long settled convictions. I am inflexibly opposed 
to its extension on this continent beyond its present limits." 

" The great body of non-slaveholding Freemen, including those 
of the South, upon whose welfare slavery is an oppression, will 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 213 

discover that the power of the General Government over the 
Public Lands may be beneficially exerted to advance their inter- 
ests, and secure their independence ; knowing this, their suffra- 
ges will not be wanting to maintain that authority in the Union, 
which is absolutely essential to the maintenance of their own 
liberties, and which has more than once indicated the purpose of 
disposing of the Public Lands in such a way as would make every 
settler upon them a freeholder." 

TIIE VOICE OF BLAIR. 

In an Address to the Republicans of Maryland, in 1856, 
Francis P. Blair says : — ■ 

" In every aspect in which slavery among us can be considered, 
•t is pregnant with difficulty. Its continuance in the States in 
which it has taken root has resulted in the monopoly of the soil, 
to a great extent, in the hands of the slaveholders, and the entire 
control of all departments of the State Government ; and yet a 
majority of people in the slave States are not slave-owners. This 
produces an anomaly in the principle of our free institutions, 
which threatens in time to bring into subjugation to slave-own- 
ers the great body of the free white population." 

THE VOICE OF MAURY. 

Lieut. Maury, to whom has been awarded so much well- 
merited praise in the world of science, says : — 

" The fact must be obvious to the far-reaching minds of our 
Statesmen, that unless some means of relief be devised, some 
channel afforded, by which the South can. when the time comes, 
get rid of the excess of her slave population, she will be ulti- 
mately found with regard to this institution, in the predicament 
of the man with the wolf by the ears ; too dangerous to hold on any 
longer, and equally dangerous to let go. To our mind, the event 
is as certain to happen as any event which depends on the con- 
tingencies of the future, viz. : that unless means be devised for <rra- 



214 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

dually relieving the slave States from the undue pressure of this 
class upon them — unless some way be opened by which they may 
be rid of their surplus black population — the time will come — it 
may not be in the next nor in the succeeding generation — but, 
sooner or later, come it will, and come it must — when the two 
races will join in the death struggle for the mastery." 

THE VOICE OF BIRNEY. 

James G. Birney, of Kentucky, under whom the Aboli- 
tionists first became a National Party, and for whom tlicy 
voted for President in 1S44, giving' him 66,304 votes,says : 

" We have so long practiced injustice, adding to it hypocrisy, 
in the treatment of the colored race, both negroes and Indians, 
that we begin to regard injustice as an element — a chief element 
— the chief element of our government. But no government 
which admits injustice as an element can be a harmonious one or 
a permanent one. Harmony is the antagonist of injustice, ever 
has been, and ever will be ; that is, so long as injustice lasts, 
which cannot always be, for it is a lie. a semblance, therefore, 
perishable. True, from the imperfection of man, his ambition 
and selfishness, injustice often finds its way incidentally into the 
administration of public affairs, and maintains its footing a long 
time before it is cast out by the legitimate elements of govern- 
ment." 

'•Our slave States, especially the more southern of them, in 
which the number of slaves is greater, and in which, of course 
the sentiment of injustice is stronger than in the more northern 
ones, are to be placed on the list of decaying communities. To a 
philosophic observer, they seem to be falling back on the scale 
of civilization. Even at the present point of retrogression, the 
cause of civilization and human improvement would lose nothing 
by their annihilation." 

THE VOICE OF DELAWARE. 

Strong anti-slavery sentiment had become popular in 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 215 

Delaware as early as 1785. With Maryland and Missouri, 
it may now be ranked as a semi-slave State. Mr. McLane, 
a member of Congress from this State in 1825, said : — 

"I shall not imitate the example of other gentlemen by mak- 
ing professions of my love of liberty and abhorrence of slavery, 
not, however, because I do not entertain them. I am an enemy 
to slavery." 

THE VOICE OF MARYLAND. 

Slavery has little vitality in Maryland. Baltimore, the 
greatest city of the South — greatest because freest — has a 
population of more than two hundred thousand souls, and 
yet less than three thousand of these are slaves. In spite 
of all the unjust and oppressive statutes enacted by the 
oligarchy, the non-slaveholders, who with the exception 
of a small number of slaveholding emancipationists, may 
in truth be said to be the only class of respectable and 
patriotic citizens in the South, have wisely determined 
that their noble State shall be freed from the sin and the 
shame, the crime and the curse of slavery ; and in accor- 
dance with this determination, long since formed, they are 
giving every possible encouragement to free white labor, 
thereby, very properly, rendering the labor of slaves both 
unprofitable and disgraceful. The formation of an Aboli- 
tion Society in this State, in 1789, was the result of the 
influence of the masterly speeches delivered in the House 
of Delegates, by the Hon. William Pinkney, whose undy- 
ing testimony we have already placed on record. Nearly 
seventy years ago, this eminent lawyer and Statesman 
declared to the people of America, that if they did not 



216 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

mark out the bounds of slavery, and adopt measures for 
its total extinction, it would finally " work a decay of the 
spirit of liberty in the free States." Further, he said that, 
" by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in 
the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage a single 
hour." In 1181, Luther Martin, of this State, said : — 

" Slavey is inconsistent with the genius of republicanism, and 
has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is sup- 
ported, as it lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, 
and habituates us to tyranny and oppression." 

THE VOICE OF VIRGINIA. 

After introducing the unreserved and immortal testi- 
mony of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and the 
other great men of the Old Dominion, against the institu- 
tion of slavery, it may to some, seem quite superfluous to 
back the cause of Freedom by arguments from other Vir- 
ginia abolitionists ; but this State, notwithstanding all 
her more modern manners and inhumanity, has been so 
prolific of just views and noble sentiments, that we deem 
it eminently fit and proper to blazon many of them to the 
world as the redeeming features of her history. An Abo- 
lition Society was formed in this State in 1191. In a me- 
morial which the members of this Society presented to 
Congress, they pronounced slavery "not only an odious 
degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the most 
essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant 
to the precepts of the Gospel." A Bill of Rights, unan- 
imously agreed upon by the Virginia Convention of June 
12, 1716, holds— 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 217 

" That all men are, by nature, equally free and independent ; 

That Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common 
benefit, protection, and security, of the People, Nation, or Com- 
munity ; 

That elections of members to serve as representatives of the 
people in assembly ought to be free ; 

That all men having sufficient evidence of permanent common 
interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right 
of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property, 
for public uses, without their own consent or that of their repre- 
sentatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have 
not in like manner assented, for the public good ; 

That the freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks 
of Liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Govern- 
ments ; 

That no free Government or the blessing of Liberty can be 
preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, mod- 
eration, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent re- 
currence to fundamental principles." 

The " Virginia Society for the Abolition of Slavery," 
organized in 1791, addressed Congress in these words : — 

'■'Your memorialists, fully aware that righteousness exalteth a 
nation, and that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but 
an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of hu- 
man nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel, 
which breathes ' peace on earth and good will to men,' lament 
that a practice so inconsistent with true policy and the inaliena- 
ble rights of men, should subsist in so enlightened an age, and 
among a people professing that all mankind are, by nature, 
equally entitled to freedom." 

TELE VOICE OF NORTH , CAROLINA. 

If the question, slavery or no slavery, could be fairly pre- 
sented for the decision of the legal voters of North Caro- 
lina at the next popular election, we believe at least two- 

10 



218 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

thirds of them would deposite the no slavery ticket. Perhaps 
one-fourth of the slaveholders themselves would vote it, 
for the slaveholders in this State are more moderate, de- 
cent, sensible, and honorable, than the slaveholders in 
either of the adjoining States, or the States further South ; 
and we know that many of them are heartily ashamed of 
the vile occupations of slaveholding and slave-breediug in 
which they are engaged, for we have the assurance from 
their own lips. As a matter of course, all the non-slave- 
holders, who are so greatly in the majority, would vote to 
suppress the degrading institution which has kept them so 
long in poverty and ignorance, with the exception of those 
who are complete automatons to the beck and call of their 
imperious lords and masters, the major-generals of the 
oligarchy. 

How long shall it be before the citizens of North Caro- 
lina shall have the privilege of expressing, at the ballot- 
box, their true sentiments with regard to this vexed ques- 
tion ? Why not decide it at the next general election ? 
Sooner or later, it must and will be decided — decided cor- 
rectly, too — and the sooner the better. The first Southern 
State that abolishes slavery will do herself an immortal 
honor. God grant that North Carolina may be that State, 
and soon ! There is at least one plausible reason why 
this good old State should be the first to move in this im- 
portant matter, and we will state it. On the 20th of May, 
1715, just one year one month and fourteen days prior to 
the adoption of the Jeffcrsonian Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, July 
4, 1116, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 219 

authorship of which is generally attributed to Ephraim 
Brevard, was proclaimed in Charlotte, Mecklenburg' county, 
North Carolina, and fully ratified in a second Convention 
of the people of said county, held on the 31st of the same 
month. And here, by the way, we may remark, that it is 
supposed Mr. Jefferson made use of this last-mentioned 
document as the basis of his draft of the indestructible 
title-deed of our liberties. There is certainly an identical- 
uess of language between the two papers that is well cal- 
culated to strengthen this hypothesis. This, however, is 
a controversy about which we are but little concerned. 
For present purposes, it is, perhaps, enough for us to 
know, that on the 20th of May, 1115, when transatlantic 
tyranny and oppression could no longer be endured, North 
Carolina set her sister colonics a most valorous and praise- 
worthy example, and that they followed it. To her infa- 
mous slaveholding sisters of the South, it is now meet that 
she should set another noble example of decency, virtue, 
and independence. Let her at once inaugurate a policy 
of common justice and humanity — enact a system of 
equitable laws, having due regard to the rights and inter- 
ests of all classes of persons, poor whites, negroes, and 
nabobs, and the surrounding States will ere long applaud 
her measures, and adopt similar ones for the governance 
of themselves. 

Another reason, and a cogent one, why North Carolina 
should aspire to become the first free State of the South is 
this : The first slave State that makes herself respectable 
by casting out " the mother of harlots," and by rendering 
enterprise and industry honorable, will immediately receive 



220 SOUTHERN TE3TIM0NY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

a large accession of most worthy citizens from other States 
in the Union, and thus lay a broad foundation of permanent 
political power and prosperity. Intelligent white farmers 
from the Middle and New England States will flock to our 
more congenial clime, eager to give thirty dollars per acre 
for the same lands that are now a drug in the market be- 
cause nobody wants them at the rate of five dollars per 
acre ; an immediate and powerful impetus will be given 
to commerce, manufactures, and all the industrial arts ; 
science and literature will be revived, and every part of 
the State will reverberate with the triumphs of manual 
and intellectual labor. 

At this present time, we of North Carolina are worth 
less than either of the four adjoining States ; let us abolish 
slavery at the beginning of the next regular decade of 
years, and if our example is not speedily followed, we shall, 
on or before the first day of January, 1810, be enabled to 
purchase the whole of Virginia and South Carolina, inclu- 
ding, perhaps, the greater part of Georgia. An exclusive 
lease of liberty for ten years would unquestionably make 
us the Empire State of the South. But we have no dispo- 
sition to debar others from the enjoyment of liberty or any 
other inalienable right ; we ask no special favors ; what 
we demand for ourselves we are willing to concede to our 
neighbors. Hereby we make application for a lease of 
freedom for ten years ; shall we have it ? May God ena- 
ble us to secure it, as we believe He will. We give, fair 
notice, however, that if we get it for ten years, we shall, 
with the approbation of Heaven, keep it twenty — forty — 
a thousand — forever ! 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 221 

We transcribe the Mecklenburg' Resolutions, which, it 
will be observed, acknowledge the " inherent and inalien- 
able rights of man," and "declare ourselves a free and 
independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a sove- 
reign and self-governing association, under the control of 
no power other than that of our God, and the general go- 
vernment of the Congress." 

MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 

As proclaimed in the town of Charlotte, North Carolina, 
May 20th, 1115, and ratified by the County of Mecklen- 
burg, in Convention, May 31st, 1115. 

" I. Resolved— That whosoever, directly or indirectly, abetted, 
or in any way, form or manner, countenanced the unchartered 
and dangerous invasion of our rights as claimed by Great Britain, 
is an enemy to this country, to America, and to the inherent and 
inalienable rights of man. 

"II. Resolved— That we the citizens of Mecklenburg County, 
do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us 
to the mother country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all 
allegiance to the British Crown, and abjure all political connec- 
tion, contract or association with that nation, who have wantonly 
trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the 
blood of American patriots at Lexington. 

'• III. Resolved— That we do hereby declare ourselves a free 
and independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign 
and self-governing association, under the control of no power other 
than that of our God, and the general government of the Con- 
press ; to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly 
pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our for- 
tunes, and our most sacred honor. 

" IV. Resolved— That as we now acknowledge the existence and 
control of no law or legal officer, civil or military, within this 
county, we do hereby ordain and adopt, as a rule of life, all, each, 



222 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

and every of our former laws — wherein, nevertheless, the crown 
of Great Britain never can be considered as holding rights, privi- 
leges, immunities or authority therein." 

Had it not been for slavery, which, with all its other 
blighting' and degrading Influences, stifles and subdues 
every noble impulse of the heart, this consecrated spot 
would long since have been marked by an enduring 
monument, whose grand proportions should bear witness 
that the virtues of a noble ancestry are gratefully remem- 
bered by an emulous and appreciative posterity. Yet, 
even as things are, we are not without genuine consola- 
tion. The star of hope and promise is beginning to beam 
brightly over the long-obscured horizon of the South ; and 
we are firm in the belief, that freedom, wealth, and mag- 
nanimity, will soon do justice to the memory of those fear- 
less patriots, whose fair fame has been suffered to moul- 
der amidst the multifarious abominations of slavery, pov- 
erty, ignorance and grovelling selfishness. 

Judge Iredell's testimony, which will be found on a 
preceding page, and to which we request the reader to 
recur, might have been appropriately introduced under 
our present heading. 

In the Provincial Convention held in North Carolina, in 
August, 11 14, in which there were sixty-nine delegates, 
representing nearly every county in the province, it was — 

" Resolved — That we will not import any slave or slaves, or 
purchase any slave or slaves imported or brought into the Pro- 
vince by others, from any part of the world, after the first day 
of November next." 

In Iredell's Statutes, revised by Martin, it is stated that, 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 223 

" In North Carolina, no general law at all was passed, prior to 
the revolution, declaring who might be slaves." 

That there is no legal slavery in the Southern States, and 
that slavery no where can be legalized, any more than 
theft, arson or murder can be legalized, has been virtually 
admitted by some of the most profound Southern jurists 
themselves ; and we will here digress so far as to furnish 
the testimony of one or two eminent lawyers, not of North 
Carolina, upon this point. 

In the debate in the United States Senate, in 1850, on 
the Fugitive Slave Bill, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, objected 
to Mr. Dayton's amendment, providing for a trial by jury, 
because, said he : — 

" A trial by jury necessarily carries with it a trial of the whole 
right, and a trial of the right to service will be gone into, ac- 
cording to all the forms of the Court, in determining upon any 
other fact. Then, again, it is proposed, as a part of the proof to 
be adduced at the hearing, after the fugitive has been re-captured, 
that evidence shall be brought by the claimant to show that slavery 
is established in the State from which the fugitive has abscond- 
ed. Now this very thing, in a recent case in the city of New- 
York, was required by one of the judges of that State, which case 
attracted the attention of the authorities of Maryland, and against 
which they protested. In that case the State judge went so far as 
to say that the only mode of proving it was by reference to the Sta- 
tute book. Such proof is required in the Senator's amendment j 
and if he means by this that proof shall be brought that slavery 
is established by existing laws, it is impossible to comply with 
the requisition, for no such law can be produced, I apprehend, in 
any of the slave States. I am not aware that there is a single 
State in which the institution is established by positive law." 

Judge Clarke, of Mississippi, says : — 



224 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

" In this State the legislature have considered slaves as reason- 
able and accountable beings ; and it would be a stigma upon the 
character of the State, and a reproach to the administration of 
justice, if the life of a slave could be taken with impunity, or if 
he could be murdered in cold blood, without subjecting the offen- 
der to the highest penalty known to the criminal jurisprudence 
of the country. Has the slave no rights, because he is deprived 
of his freedom? He is still a human being, and possesses all 
those rights of which he is not deprived by the positive provi- 
sions of the law. The right of the master exists not by force of 
the law of nature or nations, but by virtue only of the positive 
law of the State.'" 

The Hon. Judije Ruffin, of North Carolina, says : — 

' : Arguments drawn from the well-established principles, which 
confer and restrain the authority of the parent over the child, 
the tutor over the pupil, the master over the apprentice, have 
been pressed on us. The Court does not recognize their applica- 
tion ; there is no likeness between the cases ; they are in opposi- 
tion to each other, and there is an impassable gulf between them. 
The difference is that which exists between freedom and slavery, 
and a greater cannot be imagined. In the one, the end in view 
is the happiness of the youth, born to equal rights with that gov- 
ernor on whom the duty devolves of training the young to use- 
fulness, in a station which he is afterwards to assume among free- 
men. To such an end, and with such a subject, moral and intel- 
lectual instruction seem the natural means, and, for the most 
part, they are found to suffice. Moderate force is superadded 
only to make the others effectual. If that fail, it is better to 
leave the party to his own headstrong passions, and the ultimate 
correction of the law, than to allow it to be immoderately in- 
flicted by a private person. With slavery it is far otherwise. 
The end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public 
safety ; the subject, one doomed, in his own person and his pos- 
terity, to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to 
ind<j anything his own, and to toil that another may reap the 
fruits. What moral considerations shall be addressed to such a 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 225 

being to convince him, what it is impossible but that the most 
stupid must feel and know can never be true, that he is thu .-. to 
labor upon a principle of natural duty, or fur the sake of his own 
personal happiness ? Such services can only be expected from 
one who has no will of his own ; who surrenders his will in im- 
plicit obedience to that of another. Such obedience is the con- 
sequence only of uncontrolled authority over the body. There 
is nothing else which can operate to produce the effect. The 
power of the master must be absolute to render the submission 
of the slave perfect. I most freely confess my sense of the 
harshness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man 
can ; and as a principle of moral right, every person in his re- 
tirement must repudiate it." 

An esteemed friend, a physician, who was born and 
bred in Eowan county, North Carolina, and who now re- 
sides there, informs us that Judge Gaston, who was one 
of the half dozen Statesmen whom the South has produced 
since the days of the venerable fathers of the Republic, 
was an avowed abolitionist, and that he published an ad- 
dress to the people of North Carolina, delineating, in a 
masterly manner, the material, moral, and social disad- 
vantages of slavery. Where is that address? Has it 
been suppressed by the oligarchy ? The fact that slave- 
holders have, from time to time, made strenuous efforts to 
expunge the sentiments of freedom which now adorn the 
works of nobler men than the noble Gaston, may, perhaps, 
fully account for the oblivious state into which his patrio- 
tic address seems to have fallen. 

THE VOICE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Poor South Carolina ! Folly is her nightcap ; fanati- 
cism is her day-dream ; fire-eating is her pastime. She has 

10* 



226 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

lost her better judgment ; the dictates of reason and phi- 
losophy have no influence upon her actions. Like the wife 
who is pitiably infatuated with a drunken, worthless hus- 
band, she still clings, with unabated love, to the cause of 
her shame, her misery, and her degradation. 

A Kentuckian has recently expressed his opinion of this 
State in the following language :— 

" South Carolina is bringing herself irrecoverably in the public 
contempt. It is impossible for any impartial lover of his coun- 
try, for any just thinking man, to witness her senseless and 
quenchless malignancy against the Union without the most im- 
measurable disgust and scorn. She is one vast hot-bed of dis- 
union. Her people think and talk of nothing else. She is a fes- 
tering mass of treason." 

In 1854, there were assessed for taxation in 

SOUTH CAROLINA, 

Acres of Land 17,289,359 

Valued at $22,836,374 

Average value per acre $1,32 

At the same time there were in 

NEW JERSEY, 

Acres of Land 5,324,800 

Valued at $153,161,619 

Average value per acre $28,76 

We hope the Slavocrats will look, first on that picture, 
and then on this ; from one or the other, or both, they may 
glean a ray or two of wisdom, which, if duly applied, will 
be of incalculable advantage to them and their posterity. 
We trust, also, that the non-slaveholding whites will view, 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST .SLAVERY. 221 

with discriminating minds, the different lights and shades 

of these two pictures ; they are the parties most deeply 
interested ; and it is to them we look for the glorious revo- 
lution that is to substitute Freedom for Slavery. They 
have the power to retrieve the fallen fortunes of South 
Carolina, to raise her up from the loathsome sink of iniquity 
into which slavery has plunged her, and to make her one 
of the most brilliant stars in the great constellation of 
States. While their minds are occupied with other con- 
siderations, let them not forget the difference between 
twenty-eight dollars and seventy-six cents, the value of land per 
acre in New Jersey, which is a second-rate free State, and 
one dollar and thirty-two cents, the value of land per acre in 
South Carolina, which is, par excellence, the model slave 
State. The difference between the two sums is twenty- 
seven dollars and forty-four cents, which would amount to 
precisely two thousand seven hundred and forty-four dol- 
lars on every hundred acres. To present the subject in 
another form, the South Carolina tract of land, containing 
two hundred acres, is worth now only two hundred and 
sixty-four dollars, and is depreciating every day. Let 
slavery be abolished, and in the course of a few years, 
the same tract will be worth five thousand seven hundred 
and fifty-two dollars, with an upward tendency. At this 
rate, the increment of value on the total area of the 
State will amount to more than three times as much as the 
present estimated value of the slaves I 

South Carolina has not always been, nor will she always 
continue to be, on the wrong side. From Kamsay's His- 
tory of the State, we learn that, in 1114, she — 



228 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY 

<; Resolved — That His Majesty's subjects in North America 
(without respect to color or other accidents) are entitled to all 
the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects 
within the Kingdom of Great Britain ; that it is their fundamen- 
tal right, that no man should suffer in his person or property 
without a fair trial, and judgment given by his peers, or by the 
law of the land." 

One of her early writers, under the non de plume of Phi- 
lodemus, in a political pamphlet published in Charleston 
in 1784, declares that — 

" Such is the fatal influence of slavery on the human mind, 
that it almost wholly effaces from it even the boasted character- 
istic of rationality." 

This same writer, speaking of the particular interests 
of South Carolina, says : — 

" It has been too common with us to search the records of 
other nations, to find precedents that may give sanction to our 
own errors, and lead us unwarily into confusion and ruin. It is 
our business to consult their histories, not with a view to tread 
right or wrong in their steps, but in order to investigate the real 
sources of the mischiefs that have befallen them, and to endeavor 
to escape the rocks which they have all unfortunately split upon. 
It is paying ourselves but a poor compliment, to say that we are 
incapable of profiting by others, and that, with all the informa- 
tion which is to be derived from their fatal experience, it is in 
vain for us to attempt to excel them. If, with all the peculiar 
advantages of our present situation, we are incapable of surpass- 
ing our predecessors, we must be a degenerate race indeed, and 
quite unworthy of those singular bounties of Heaven, which we 
are so unskilled or undesirous to turn to our benefit." 

A recent number of Frazer's Magazine contains a well- 
timed and well-written article from the pen of Win. Henry 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 220 

Hurlbut, of this State ; and from it wc make the following 
extract : — 

" As all sagacious observers of the operation of the system of 
slavery have demonstrated, the profitable employment of slave- 
labor is inconsistent with the development of agricultural sci- 
ence, and demands a continual supply of new and unexhausted 
soil. The slaveholder, investing his capital in the purchase of 
the laborers themselves, and not merely in soil and machines, 
paying his free laborers out of the profit, must depend for his 
continued and progressive prosperity upon the cheapness and 
facility with which he can transfer his slaves to fresh and fertile 
lands. An enormous additional item, namely, the price of slaves, 
•being added to the cost of production, all other elements of that 
cost require to be proportionably smaller, or profits fail." 

In an address delivered before the South Carolina Insti- 
tute, in Charleston, Nov. 20th, 1856, Mr. B. F. Perry, of 
Greenville, truthfully says : — 

"It has been South Carolina's misfortune, in this utilitarian 
age, to have her greatest talents and most powerful energies di- 
rected to pursuits, which avail her nothing, in the way of wealth 
and prosperity. In the first settlement of a new country, agri- 
cultural industry necessarily absorbs all the time and occupation 
of its inhabitants. They must clear the forests and cultivate the 
earth, in order to make their bread. This is their first consider- 
ation. Then the mechanical arts, and manufactures, and com- 
merce, must follow in the footsteps of agriculture, to insure either 
individual or national prosperity. No people can be highly pros- 
perous without them. No people ever have been. Agriculture, 
alone, will not make or sustain a great people. The true policy 
of every people is to cultivate the earth, manufacture its pro- 
ducts, and send them abroad, in exchange for those comforts and 
luxuries, and necessaries, which their own country and their own 
industry cannot give or make. The dependence of South Car- 
olina on Europe, and the Northern States for all the necessaries. 



230 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

comforts and luxuries, which the mechanic arts afford, has, in 
fact, drained her of her wealth, and made her positively poor, 
when compared with her sister States of the Confederacy. It is 
at once mortifying and alarming, to see and reflect on our own 
dependence in the mechanic arts and manufactures, on strangers 
and foreigners. In the Northern States their highest talents 
and energy have been diversified, and more profitably employed 
in developing the resources of the country, in making new inven- 
tions in the mechanic arts, and enriching the community with 
science and literature, commerce and manufactures." 

THE VOICE OF GEORGIA. 

Of the States strictly Southern, Georgia is, perhaps, the 
most thrifty. This prosperous condition of the State is 
mainly ascribable to her hundred thousand free whito 
laborers — more than eighty-three thousand of whom arc 
engaged in agricultural pursuits. In few other slave 
States are the non-slaveholders so little under the domina- 
tion of the oligarchy. At best, however, even in the most 
liberal slave States, the social position of the non-slave- 
holding whites is but one short step in advance of that 
of the negroes ; and as there is, on the part of the oligar- 
chy, a constantly increasing desire and effort to usm-p 
greater power, the more we investigate the subject the 
more fully are we convinced that nothing but the speedy 
and utter annihilation of slavery from the entire nation, 
can save the masses of white people in the Southern States 
from ultimately falling to a political level with the blacks 
— both occupying the most abject and galling condition 
of servitude of which it is possible for the human mind 
to conceive. 

Gen. Oglethorpe, under whose management the Colony 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 231 

of Georgia was settled, in 1133, was bitterly opposed to 
the institution of slavery. In a letter to Granville Sharp, 
dated Oct. 13th, It 7 6, lie says :— 

" My friends and I settled the Colony of Georgia, and by char- 
ter were established trustees, to make laws, &c. We determined 
not to suffer slavery there. But the slave merchants and their 
adherents occasioned us not only much trouble, but at last got 
the then government to favor them. We would not suffer slav- 
ery, (which is against the Gospel, as well as the fundamental law 
of England,) to be authorized under our authority ; we refused, 
as trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime. The 
government, finding the trustees resolved firmly not to concur 
with what they believed unjust, took away the charter by which 
no law could be passed without our consent." 

On the 12th of January, 1115, in indorsing the proceed- 
ings of the first American Congi-ess, among other resolu- 
tions, "the Representatives of the extensive District of 
Darien, in the Colony of Georgia" adopted the following : — 

" 5. To show the world that we are not influenced by any con- 
tracted or interested motives, but a general philanthropy for all 
mankind, of whatever climate, language, or complexion, we hereby 
declare our disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural prac- 
tice of slavery in America, (however the uncultivated state of our 
country or other specious arguments may plead for it.) a practice 
founded in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our lib- 
erties, (as well as lives,) debasing part of our fellow creatures be- 
low men, and corrupting the virtue and morals of the rest ; and 
is laying the basis of that liberty we contend for, (and which we 
pray the Almighty to continue to the latest posterity',) upon a 
very wrong foundation. We therefore resolve, at all times, to 
use our utmost endeavors for the manumission of our slaves in 
this Colony, upon the most safe and equitable footing for the 
masters and themselves." 



232 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

The Hon. Mr. Reid, of this State, in a speech delivered 
in Congress, Feb. 1, 1820, says : — 

" I am not the panegyrist of slavery. It is an unnatural state, 
a dark cloud, which obscures half the lustre of our free institu- 
tions. For my own part, though surrounded by slavery from my 
cradle to the present moment, yet — 

' I hate the touch of servile hands, 
I loathe the slaves who cringe around.' " 

As an accompaniment to those lines, he might have 
littered these : — 

c: I would not have a slave to till my ground ; 
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep 
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned." 

Thus have we presented a comprehensive summary of 
the most unequivocal and irrefragable testimony of the 
South against the iniquitous institution of human slavery. 
What more can we say ? What more can we do ? We 
might fill a folio volume with similar extracts ; but we 
must forego the task ; the remainder of our space must be 
occupied with other arguments. In the foregoing excerpts 
is revealed to us, in language too plain to be misunderstood, 
the important fact that every truly great and good man 
the South has ever produced, has, with hopeful confidence, 
looked forward to the time when this entire continent shall 
be redeemed from the crime and the curse of slavery. Our 
noble self-sacrificing forefathers have performed their part, 
and performed it well. They have laid us a foundation as 
enduring as the earth itself ; in their dying moments they 



SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 233 

admonished us to carry out their designs in the upbuilding 
and completion of the superstructure. Let us obey their 
patriotic injunctions. 

From each of the six original Southern States we have 
introduced the most ardent aspirations for liberty— the 
most positive condemnations of slavery. From each of 
the nine slave States which have been admitted into the 
Union since the organization of the General Government, 
we could introduce, from several of their wisest and best 
citizens, anti-slavery sentiments equally as strong and con- 
vincing as those that emanated from the great founders 
of our movement— Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Patrick 
Henry and the Randolphs. As we have already remarked, 
however, the limits of this chapter will not admit of the 
introduction of additional testimony from either of the old 
or of the new slave States. 

The reader will not fail to observe that, in presenting 
these solid abolition doctrines of the South, we have been 
careful to make such quotations as triumphantly refute, in 
every particular, the more specious sophistries of the 

oligarchy. 

The mention of the illustrious names above, reminds us 
of the fact, that the party newspapers, whose venal columns 
are eternally teeming with vituperation and slander, have 
lung assured us that the Whig ship was to be steered by 
the Washington rudder, that the Democratic barque was 
to sail with the Jefferson compass, and that the Know- 
Nothing brig was to carry the Madison chart. Imposed 
upon by these monstrous falsehoods, we have, from time 
to time, been induced to engage passage on each of these 



234 SOUTHERN TESTIMONY AGAINST SLAVERY. 

corrupt and rickety old hulks ; but, in every instance, we 
have been basely swamped in the sea of slavery, and are 
alone indebted for our lives to the kindness of Heaven and 
the art of swimming. Washington the founder of the 
Whig party ! Jefferson the founder of the Democratic 
party ! Voltaire the founder of Christianity ! God forbid 
that man's heart should always continue to be the citadel 
of deception — that he should ever be to others the antipode 
of what he is to himself. 

There is now in this country but one party that promises, 
in good faith, to put in practice the principles of Washing- 
tun, Jefferson, Madison, and the other venerable Fathers 
of the Eepublic — the Republican party. To this party we 
pledge unswerving allegiance, so long as it shall continue 
to pursue the statism advocated by the great political 
prototypes above-mentioned, but no longer. We believe 
it is, as it ought to be, the desire, the determination, and 
the destiny of this party, to give the death-blow to slavery ; 
should future developments prove the party at variance 
with this belief — a belief, by the bye, which it has recently 
inspired in the breasts of little less than one and a half 
millions of the most intelligent and patriotic voters in 
America — we shall shake off the dust of our feet against 
it, and join one that will, in a summary manner, extirpate 
the intolerable irrievance. 



NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 235 



CHAPTER IV. 



NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 



The best evidence that can be given of the enlightened 
| patriotism and love of liberty in the Free States, is the 
:fact that, at the Presidential election in 1856, they polled 
thirteen hundred thousand votes for the Republican can- 
didate, John C. Fremont. This fact of itself seems to 
preclude the necessity of strengthening our cause with the 
individual testimony of even their greatest men. Having, 
however, adduced the most cogent and conclusive anti- 
slavery arguments from the Washingtons, the Jeffersons, 
the Madisons, the Randolphs, and the Clays of the South, 
we shall now proceed to enrich our pages with gems of 
Liberty from the Franklins, the Hamiltons, the Jays, the 
Adamses, and the Websters of the North. Too close at- 
tention cannot be paid to the words of wisdom which we 
have extracted from the works of these truly eminent and 
philosophic Statesmen. We will first listen to 

the voice of franklin. 

Dr. Franklin was the first president of " The Pennsyl- 
vania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery ;'» 



236 NORTHERN 1 TESTIMONY. 

and it is now generally conceded that this was the first 
regularly organized American abolition Society— it having 
been formed as early as 1774, while we were yet subjects 
of the British government. In 1790, in the name and on 
behalf of this Society, Dr. Franklin, who was then within 
a few months of the close of his life, drafted a memorial 
" to the Senate and House of Representatives of tho 
United States," in which he said : — 

" Your memorialists, particularly engaged in attending to the 
distresses arising from slavery, believe it to be their indispensa- 
ble duty to present this subject to your notice. They have ob- 
served, with real satisfaction, that many important and salutary 
powers are vested in you, for ' promoting the welfare and secur- 
ing the blessings of liberty to the people of the United States; 
and as they conceive that these blessings ought rightfully to be 
administered, without distinction of color, to all descriptions of 
people, so they indulge themselves in the pleasing expectation 
that nothing which can be done for the relief of the unhappy ob- 
jects of their care, will be either omitted or delayed. 

From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the por- 
tion, and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the 
strong ties of humanity and the principles of their institution, 
your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifia- 
ble endeavors to loosen the bonds of slavery, and promote a gen- 
eral enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these im- 
pressions, they earnestly entreat your attention to the subject 
of slavery ; that you will be pleased to countenance the restora- 
tion to liberty of those unhappy men, who, alone, in this land of 
freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amid the 
general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile sub- 
jection ; that you will devise means for removing this inconsis- 
tency of character from the American people; that you will pro- 
mote mercy and justice towards this distressed race; and that 
you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for 



NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 237 

discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow- 
pen," 

On another occasion, he says : — " Slavery is an atrocious de- 
basement of human nature." 

THE VOICE OF HAMILTON. 

Alexander Hamilton, the brilliant Statesman and finan- 
cier, tells us that — 

c: The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for 
among old parchments or musty records. They are written as 
rwith a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the 
[hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured 
by mortal power." 

Again, in H14, addressing himself to an American Tory, 
he says : — 

<: The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and 
false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of man- 
kind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you 
, could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, 
entitled to equal privileges. You would be convinced that natu- 
ral liberty is the gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole hu- 
man race ; and that civil liberty is founded on that." 

THE VOICE OF JAY. 

John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States under 
the Constitution of 1*789, in a letter to the Hon. Elias Bou- 
dinot, dated Nov. 17, 1819, says : — 

''Little can be added to what has been said and written on the 
subject of slavery. I concur in the opinion that it ought not to 
be introduced nor permitted in any of the new States, and that 
it ought to be gradually diminished and finally abolished in all 
of them. 



238 NORTHERN TESTIMONY 

:: To me, the constitutional authority of the Congress to prohi- 
Lit the migration and importation of slaves into any of the States, 
does not appear questionable. 

' ; The first article of the Constitution specifies the legislative 
powers committed to the Congress. The 9th section of that article 
has these words : ! The migration or importation of such persons 
as any of the now-existing States shall think proper to admit, 
shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808, 
but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not ex- 
ceeding ten dollars for each person.' 

•• I understand the sense and meaning of this clause to be. that 
the power of the congress, although competent to prohibit such 
migration and importation, was to be exercised with respect to 
the then existing States, and them only, until the year 1808, but! 
the Congress were at liberty to make such prohibitions as to any 
new State, which might in the mean time be established. And 
further, that from and after thai period, they were authorized to 
make such prohibitions as to all the States, whether new or old. 

"It will. I presume.be admitted, that slaves were the persons 
intended. The word slaves was avoided, probably on account 
of the existing toleration of slavery, and its discordancy with the 
principles of the Revolution, and from a consciousness of its be- 
ing repugnant to the following positions in the Declaration of In- 
dependence : ; We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all 
men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator, 
with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, ■ 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness/ " 

In a previous letter, written from Spain, whither he had 
been appointed as minister plenipotentiary, he 
speaking of the abolition of slavery : — 

" Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to Heaven 

will be impious. This is a strong expression, but it is just. I 

believe that God governs the world, and I believe it to be a 

maxim in His, as in our Courts, that those who ask for equity 

to do it." 



NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 239 

WILLIAM JAY. 

The Hon. Wm. Jay, a noble son of Chief Justice John 
j Jay, says :— 

K A crisis has arrived in which we must maintain our rights, or 
surrender them for ever. I speak not to abolitionists alone, but 
to all who value the liberty our fathers achieved. Do you ask 
iwhat we have to do with slavery 1 Let our muzzled presses an- 
swer — let the mobs excited against us by the merchants and 
ians answer — let the gag laws threatened by our governors 
and legislatures answer, let the conduct of the National Govern- 
ment answer." 

THE VOICE OF ADAMS. 

From the Diary of John Quincy Adams, " the old man 
eloquent," we make the following extract : — 

!: It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very sources 
of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and 
vice ; for what can be more false and more heartless than this 
doctrine, which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to 
depend upon the color of the skin? It perverts human reason, 
and Induces men endowed with logical powers to maintain that 
slavery is sanctioned by the Christian religion ; that slaves are 
happy and contented in their condition ; that between master 
and slave there are ties of mutual attachment and affection ; that 
the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by the degrada- 
tion of the slave, while at the same time they vent execrations 
upon the slave-trade, curse Britain for having given them slaves. 
burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes, for the terror 
of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at the ver}- men- 
tion of human rights as applicable to men of color." 

THE VOICE OF WEBSTER. 

In a speech which he delivered at Niblo's Garden, in 



240 NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 

the city of New- York, on the 15th of March, 1847, Daniel 
Webster, the great Expounder of the Constitution, said : — 

" On the general question of slavery, a great part of the com- 
munity is already strongly excited. The subject has not only 
attracted attention as a question of politics, but it has struck a 
far deeper one ahead. It has arrested the religious feeling of 
the country, it has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. 
lie is a rash man, indeed, and little conversant with human na- 
ture, and especially has he an erroneous estimate of the charac- 
ter of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of 
this kind is to be trifled with or despised. It will assuredly 
cause itself to be respected. But to endeavor to coin it into sil- 
ver, or retain its free expression, to seek to compress and con- 
fine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such endeavors would 
inevitably render it — should this be attempted, I know nothing, 
even in the Constitution or Union itself, which might not be en- 
dangered by the explosion which might follow." 

When discussing the Oregon Bill in 1848, he said : — 

li I have made up my mind, for one, that under no circumstan- 
ces will I consent to the further extension of the area of slavery 
in the United States, or to the further increase of slave repre- 
ss tation in the House of E,epresentatives." 

Under date of February 15th, 1850, in a letter to the 
Rev. Mr. Furness, he says : — 

£: From my earliest youth I have regarded slavery as a great 
moral and political evil. I think it unjust, repugnant to the nat- 
ural equality of mankind, founded only in superior power ; a 
standing and permanent conquest by the stronger over the 
weaker. All pretense of defending it on the ground of different 
races, I have ever condemned. I have even said that if the black 
race is weaker, that is a reason against, not for, its subjection 
and oppression. In a religious point of view I have ever regard- 
ed it, and even spoken of it, not as subject to any express denun- 



NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 241 

ciation, either in the Old Testament or the New, but as opposed 
to the whole spirit of the Gospel and to the teachings of Jesus 
Christ. The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of kindness, 
justice, and brotherly love. But slavery is not kindly affection- 
ate ; it does not seek anothers, and not its own ; it does not let 
the oppressed go free. It is, as I have said, but a continual act 
of oppression. But then, such is the influence of a habit of 
thinking among men, and such is the influence of what has been 
long established, that even minds, religious and tenderly con- 
scientious, such as would be shocked by any single act of oppres- 
sion, in any single exercise of violence and unjust power, are not 
always moved by the reflection that slavery is a continual and 
permanent violation of human rights." 

While delivering a speech at Buffalo, in the State of 
New York, in the summer of 1851, only about twelve 
months prior to his decease, he made use of the following- 
emphatic words : — 

" I never would consent, and never have consented, that there 
should be one foot of slave territory beyond what the old thir- 
teen States had at the formation of the Union. Never, never !" 

NOAH WEBSTER. 

Noah Webster, the great American vocabulist, says : — 

" That freedom is the sacred right of every man, whatever be 
his color, who has not forfeited it by some violation of muni- 
cipal law, is a truth established by God himself, in the very crea- 
tion of human beings. No time, no circumstance, no human 
power or policy can change the nature of this truth, nor repeal 
the fundamental laws of society, by which every man's right to 
liberty is guarantied. The act of enslaving men is always a vio- 
lation of those great primary laws of society, by which alone 
the master himself holds every particle of his own freedom." 

11 



242 NORTHERN TESTIMONY, 

THE VOICE OF CLINTON. 

DeWitt Clinton, the father of the great system of inter- 
nal improvements in the State of New York, speaking of 
despotism in Europe, and of slavery in America, asks : — 

t: Have net prescription and precedent — patriarchal dominion 
— divine right of kings and masters, been alternately called in to 
sanction the slavery of nations ? And would not all the despot- 
isms of the ancient and modern world have vanished into air, if 
the natural equality of mankind had been properly understood 
and practiced ? * * * This declares that the same measure of 
justice ought to be measured out to all men, without regard to 
adventitious inequalities, and the intellectual and physical dispari- 
ties which proceed from inexplicable causes." 

THE VOICE OF WARREN. 

Major General Joseph Warren, one of the truest pat- 
riots of the Revolution, and the first American officer of 
rank that fell in our contest with Great Britain, says : — 

•' That personal freedom is the natural right of every man, and 
that property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has 
honestly acquired by his own labor, necessarily arises therefrom, 
are truths that common sense has placed beyond the reach of 
contradiction. And no man, or body of men, can. without being 
guilty of flagrant injustice, claim a right to dispose of the persons 
or acquisitions of any other man or body of men. unless it can be 
proved that such a right has arisen from some compact between 
the parties, in which it has been explicitly and freely granted." 

Otis, Hancock, Ames, and others, should be heard, but 
for the want of space. Volumes upon volumes might be 
filled with extracts similar to the above, from the works 
of the deceased Statesmen and sages of the North, who, 



NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 243 

while living-, proved themselves equal to the task of ex- 
terminating from their own States the matchless curse of 
human slavery. Such are the men who, though no longer 
with us in the flesh, " still live." A living principle — an 
immortal interest — have they, invested in every great and 
good work that distinguishes the free States. The rail- 
roads, the canals, the telegraphs, the factories, the fleets 
of merchant vessels, the magnificent cities, the scientific 
modes of agriculture, the unrivaled institutions of learning, 
and other striking evidences of progress and improvement 
at the North, are, either directly or indirectly, the off- 
spring of their gigantic intellects. When, if ever, com- 
merce, and manufactures, and agriculture, and great en- 
terprises, and truth, and liberty, and justice, and magnan- 
imity, shall have become obsolete terms, then their names 
may possibly be forgotten, but not tell then. 

An army of brave and worthy successors — champions 
of Freedom now living, have the illustrious forefathers of 
the North, in the persons of Garrison, Greeley, Giddings, 
Goodell, Grow, and Gen-it Smith ; in Seward, Sumner, 
Stowe, Raymond, Parker, and Phillips ; in Beecher, Banks, 
Burlingame, Bryant, Hale, and Hildreth ; in Emerson, 
Dayton, Thompson, Tappan, King and Cheevcr ; in Whit- 
tier, Wilson, Wade, Wayland, Weed, and Burleigh. These 
are the men whom, in connection with their learned and 
eloquent compatriots, the Everetts, the Bancrofts, the 
Prescotts, the Chapins, the Longfellows, and the Danas, 
future historians, if faithful to their calling, will place on 
record as America's true statesmen, literati, preachers, 
philosopheis, and philanthropists, of the present age. 



244 NORTHERN TESTIMONY. 

In this connection, however, it may not be amiss to re- 
mark that the Homers, the Platos, the Bacons, the New- 
tons, the Shakspeares, the Miltons, the Blackstones, the 
Cuviers, the Humboldts, and the Macaulays of Amercia, 
have not yet been produced ; nor, in our humble judgment, 
will they be, until slavery shall have been overthrown and 
freedom established in the States of Virginia, Kentucky, 
and Tennessee. Upon the soil of those States, when free, 
or on other free soil crossed by about the same degrees 
of latitude, and not distant from the Appalachian chain of 
mountains, will, we believe, be nurtured into manhood, in 
the course of one or two centuries, perhaps, as great men 
as those mentioned above — greater, possibly, than any 
that have ever yet lived. Whence their ancestors may 
come, whether from Europe, from Asia, from Africa, from 
Oceanica, from North or South America, or from the 
islands of the sea, or whatever honorable vocation they 
may now be engaged in, matters nothing at all. For 
ought we know, their great-grandfathers are now humble 
artisans in Maine, or moneyed merchants in Massachu 
setts ; illiterate poor whites in Mississippi, or slave-driv- 
ing lordlings in South Carolina ; frugal farmers in Michi- 
gan, or millionaires in Illinois ; daring hunters in the 
Rocky Mountains, or metal-diggers in California ; peasants 
in France, or princes in Germany — no matter where, or 
what, the scope of country above-mentioned is, in our 
opinion, destined tobo the birth-place of their illustrious 
offspring — the great savans of the New World, concern- 
ing whom we should console ourselves with the hope that 
they are not buried deeply in the matrix of the future. 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 245 



CHAPTEE V. 

TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 

To the true friends of freedom throughout the world, it 
is a pleasing- thought, and one which, by being communi- 
cated to others, is well calculated to universalize the prin- 
ciples of liberty, that the great heroes, statesmen, and 
sages, of all ages and nations, ancient and modern, who 
have ever had occasion to speak of the institution of hu- 
man slavery, have entered their most unequivocal and 
positive protests against it. To say that they disapproved 
of the system would not be sufficiently expressive of the 
utter detestation with which they uniformly regarded it. 
That they abhorred it as the vilest invention that the Evil- 
One has ever assisted bad men to concoct, is quite evi- 
dent from the very tone and construction of their lan- 
guage. 

Having, with much pleasure and profit, heard the testi- 
mony of America, through her representative men, we 
will now hear that of other nations, through their repre- 
sentative men — doubting not that we shall be more than 
remunerated for our time and trouble. We will first 
listen to 



246 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 

THE VOICE OF ENGLAND. 

In the case of James Somerset, a negro who had been 
kidnapped in Africa, transported to Virginia, there sold 
into slavery, thence carried to England, as a waiting-boy, 
and there induced to institute proceedings against his 
master for the recovery of his freedom, 

mansfield says : — 

" The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable 
of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only 
by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, 
occasion, and time itself whence it was created, is erased from the 
memory. It is so odious that nothing can be sufficient to sup- 
port it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, 
may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed 
or approved by the law of England, and therefore the black must 
be discharged." 

locke says : — 

" Slavery is so vile, so miserable a state of man, and so directly 
opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, tnat 
it is hard to be convinced that an Englishman, much less a gen- 
tleman, should plead for it." 

Again, he says : — 

" Though the earth, and all inferior creatures be common to 
all men, yet every man has a property in his own person ; this 
nobody has any right to but himself." 

pitt says : — 
"It is injustice to permit slavery to remain for a single hour." 

fox says : — 
"With regard to a regulation of slavery, my detestation of its 



TESTIMONY OF TIIE NATIONS. 24 1 

existence induces me to know no such thing as a regulation of 
robbery, and a restriction of murder. Personal freedom is a 
right of which he who deprives a fellow-creature is criminal in 
so depriving him, and be who withholds is no less criminal in 
withholding." 

shakspeare says : — 

" A man is master of his liberty." 

Again, he says : — 

<; It is the curse of Kings, to be attended 
B} r slaves, that take their humors for a warrant 
To break within the bloody house of life, 
And, on the winkling of authority, 
To understand a law ; to know the meaning 
Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns 
More upon humor than advised respect." 

Again : — 

" Heaven will one day free us from this slavery." 

Again : — 

" Liberty ! Freedom ! Tyranny is dead ! — 
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets ; 
Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, 
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement" 

cowper says : — 

"Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs \ 
Receive our air, that moment they are free. 
They touch our country and their shackles fall. 
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, 
And let it circulate through e\evj vein 
Of all your Empire, that where Britain's power 
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too !" 



248 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 

milton asks : — 

" Where is the beauty to see, 

Like the sun-brilliant brow of a nation when free V 

Again, he says : — 

" If our fathers promised for themselves, to make themselves 
slaves, they could make no such promise for us." 

Again : — 

"Since, therefore, the law is chiefly right reason, if we are 
bound to obey a magistrate as a minister of God, by the \evy same 
reason and the very same law, we ought to resist a tyrant, and 
minister of the devil." 

dr. johnson says : — 

" No man is by nature the property of another. The rights of 
nature must be some way forfeited before they can justly be taken 
away." 

dr. price says : — 

'' If you have a right to make another man a slave, he has a 
right to make you a slave." 

blackstone says : — 

" If neither captivity nor contract can, by the plain law of na- 
ture and reason, reduce the parent to a state of slavery, much 
less can they reduce the offspring." 

Again, he says : — 

" The primary aim of society is to protect individuals in the 
enjoyment of those absolute rights which were vested in them by 
the immutable laws of nature. Hence it follows that the first 
and primary end of human laws is to maintain those absolute 
rights of individuals." 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 249 



Again : — 



"If any human law shall allow or require us to commit crime, 
we are bound to transgress that human law, or else we must 
offend both the natural and divine." 

coke says : — 

"What the Parliament doth, shall be holden for naught, when- 
ever it shall enact that which is contrary to the rights of nature." 

hampden says : — 

"The essence of all law is justice. What is not justice is not 
law ; and what is not law, ought not to be obeyed." 

Harrington says : 

"All men naturally, are equal ; for though nature with a noble 
variety has made different features and lineaments of men, yet as 
to freedom, she has made every one alike, and given them the 
same desires." 

fortescue says : — 

" Those rights which God and nature have established, and 
which are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, 
need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in 
every man than they are ; neither do they receive any additional 
strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. 
On the contrary, no human power has any authority to abridge 
or destroy them, unless the owner himself shall commit some act 
that amounts to a forfeiture." 

Again, he says : — 

" The law, therefore, which supports slavery and opposes lib- 
erty, must necessarily be condemned as cruel, for every feeling 
of human nature advocates liberty. Slavery is introduced by hu- 
man wickedness, but God advocates liberty, by the nature which 

he has given to man." 

11* 



250 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS 

brougham says : 

" Tell me not of rights — talk not of the property of the planter 
in his slaves. I deny the right ; I acknowledge not the property. 
In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim. There is 
a law above all the enactments of human codes, the same through- 
out the world, the same in all times ; it is the law written by the 
finger of God on the hearts of men ; and by that law. unchangeable 
and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and ab- 
hor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty 
phantasy that man can hold property in man." 

THE VOICE OF IRELAND. 

burke says : — 

" Slavery is a state so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous 
to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not 
to be suffered to exist." 

curran says : — 

•• I speak in the spirit of British law, which makes liberty 
commensurate with and inseparable from British soil ; which 
proclaims even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he 
sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he 
treads is holy and consecrated by the genius of Universal Eman- 
cipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been 
pronounced ; no matter what complexion, incompatible with free- 
dom, an Indian or African sun may have burnt upon him ; no 
matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven 
down ; no matter with what solemnities he may have been de- 
voted upon the altar of slavery, the moment he touch the sacred 
soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust ; 
his soul walks abroad in her own majesty ; and he stands re- 
deemed, regenerated and disenthralled by the irresistible genius 
of Universal Emancipation." 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 251 

The Dublin University Magazine for December, 1856, 
says : — 

" The United States must learn, from the example of Rome, 
that Christianity and the pagan institution of slavery cannot co- 
exist together. The Republic must take her side and choose her 
favorite child ; for if she love the one, she must hate the other." 

THE VOICE OF SCOTLAND. 

beattie says : — 

u Slavery is inconsistent with the dearest and most essential 
rights of man's nature ; it is detrimental to virtue and industry ; 
it hardens the heart to those tender sympathies which form the 
most lovely part of human character ; it involves the inno- 
cent in hopeless misery, in order to procure wealth and pleasure 
for the authors of that misery ; it seeks to degrade into brutes 
beings whom the Lord of Heaven and Earth endowed with ra- 
tional souls, and created for immortality ; in short, it is utterly 
repugnant to every principle of reason, religion, humanity, and 
conscience. It is impossible for a considerate and unprejudiced 
mind, to think of slavery without horror." 

miller says : — 

" The human mind revolts at a serious discussion of the sub- 
ject of slavery. Every individual, whatever be his country or 
complexion, is entitled to freedom." 

macknight says : — 

" Men-stealers are inserted among the daring criminals against 
whom the law of God directed its awful curses. These were 
persons who kidnapped men to sell them for slaves ; and this 
practice seems inseparable from the other iniquities and oppres- 
sions of slavery ; nor can a slave dealer easily keep free from 
this criminality, if indeed the receiver is as bad as- the thief." 



252 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 
THE VOICE OP FRANCE. 
LAFAYETTE says : 

" I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, 
if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of 
slavery." 

Again, while in the prison of Magdeburg, he says : — 

" I know not what disposition has been made of my plantation 
at Cayenne ; but I hope Madame de Lafayette will take care that 
the negroes who cultivate it shall preserve their liberty." 

0. Lafayette, grandson of General Lafayette, in a let- 
ter under date of April 26th, 1851, says : — 

" This great question of the Abolition of Negro Slavery, which 
has my entire sympathy, appears to me to have established its 
importance throughout the world. At the present time, the 
States of the Peninsula, if I do not deceive myself, are the only 
European powers who still continue to possess slaves ; and 
America, while continuing to uphold slavery, feels daily, more and 
more how heavily it weighs upon her destinies." 

moxtesquien asks : — 

" What civil law can restrain a slave from running away, since 
he is not a member of society V 

Again, he says : — 

" Slavery is contrary to the fundamental principles of all socie- 
ties." 

Again : — 

"In democracies, where they are all upon an equality, slavery 
is contrary to the principles of the Constitution." 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATION'S. 253 

Again : — 

" Nothing puts one nearer the condition of a brute than always 
to see freemen and not be free." 

Again : — 

'• Even the earth itself, which teems with profusion under the 
cultivating hand of the free born laborer, shrinks into barrenness 
from the contaminating sweat of a slave." 

louis x. issued the following edict : — 

"As all men are by nature free born, and as this Kingdom is 
called the Kingdom of Franks, (freemen) it shall be so in reality. 
It is therefore decreed that enfranchisement shall be granted 
throughout the whole Kingdom upon just and reasonable terms." 

buffon says : — 

"It is apparent that the unfortunate negroes are endowed with 
excellent hearts, and possess the seeds of every human virtue. I 
cannot write their history without lamenting their miserable 
condition." " Humanity revolts at those odious oppressions that 
result from avarice." 

eousseau says : — 

" The terms slavery and right, contradict and exclude each 
other." 

bkissot says : — 

" Slavery, in all its forms, in all its degrees, is a violation of 
divine law, and a degradation of human nature." 

THE VOICE OF GERMAN V. 

grotius says : — 

" Those are men-stealers who abduct, keep, sell or buy slaves 
or free men. To steal a man is the highest kind of theft.'' 



254 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 

goethe says : — 

" Such busy multitudes I fain would see 
Stand upon free soil with a people free." 

luther says : — 

" Unjust violence is, by no means, the ordinance of God, and 
therefore can bind no one in conscience and right, to obey, whe- 
ther the command comes from pope, emperor, king or master." 

An able German writer of the present day, says, in a 
recent letter to his friends in this country : — 

'' Consider that the cause of American liberty is the cause of 
universal liberty ; its failure, a triumph of despotism everywhere. 
Eemember that while American liberty is the great argument of 
European Democracy, American slavery is the greater argument 
of its despotism. Eemember that all our actions should be gov- 
erned by the golden rule, whether individual, social, or political; 
and no government, and, above all, no republican government, is 
safe in the hands of men that practically deny that rule. Will 
you support by your vote a system that recognizes property of 
man in man ? A system which sanctions the sale of the child by 
its own father, regardless of the purpose of the buyer 1 What 
need is there to present to you the unmitigated wrong of slavery 1 
It is the shame of our age that argument is needed against 
slavey. 

" Liberty is no exclusive property ; it is the property of man- 
kind of all ages. She is immortal, though crushed, can never die ; 
though banished, she will return ; though fettered, she will yet 
be free." 

THE VOICE OF ITALY. 

cicero says : — 

" By the grand laws of nature, all men are born free, and this 
law is universally binding upon all men." 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 255 

Again, he says : — 

" Eternal justice is the basis of all human laws." 

Again : — 

"Law is not something wrought out by man's ingenuity, nor is 
it a decree of the people, but it is something eternal, governing 
the world by the wisdom of its commands and prohibitions." 

Again : — 

"Whatever is just is also the true law. nor can this true law 
be abrogated by any written enactments." 

Again : — 

'•' If there be such a power in the decrees and commands of 
fools, that the nature of things is changed by their votes, why do 
they not decree that what is bad and pernicious shall be regarded 
as good and wholesome, or why, if the law can make wrong right, 
can it not make bad good V 

Again : — 

" Those who have made pernicious and unjust decrees, have 
made anything rather than laws." 

Again : — 

" The law of all nations forbids one man to pursue his advan- 
tage at the expense of another." 

lactantius says : — 

" Justice teaches men to know God and to love men, to love 
and assist one another, being all equally the children of God." 

leo x. says : — 

" Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself cry 
out against the state of slavery." 



256 TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 

THE VOICE OF GEEECE. 

socrates says : — 

" Slavery is a system of outrage and robbery." 

aristotle says ■: — 

" It is neither for the good, nor is it just, seeing all men are by 
nature alike, and equal, that one should be lord and master over 
others." 

polybius says : — ■ 

" None but unprincipled and beastly men in society assume the 
mastery over their fellows, as it is among bulls, bears, and cocks." . 

plato says : — 

" Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice." 

From each of the above, and from other nations, addi- 
tional testimony is at hand ; but, for reasons already 
assigned, we forbear to introduce it. Corroborative of the 
correctness of the position which we have assumed, even 
Persia has a voice, which may be easily recognized in the 
tones of her immortal Cyms, who says : 

" To fight, in order not to be made a slave, is noble." 

Than Great Britain no nation has more heartily or hon- 
orably repented of the crime of slavery — no nation, on the 
perception of its error, has ever acted with more prompt 
magnanimity to its outraged and unhappy bondsmen. 
Entered to her credit, many precious jewels of liberty re- 
main in our possession, ready to be delivered when called 
for ; of their value some idea may be formed, when we 
state that they are filigreed with such names as Wilber- 



TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONS. 257 

force, Buxton, Granville, Grattan, Camden, Clarkson, 
Sharp, Sheridan, Sidney, Martin, and Macaulay. 

Virginia, the Carolinas, and other Southern States, 
which are provided with lepublican (!) forms of govern- 
ment, and which have abolished freedom, should learn, 
from the history of the monarchal governments of the Old 
World, if not from the example of the more liberal and 
enlightened portions of the New, how to abolish slavery. 
The lesson is before them in a variety of exceedingly in- 
teresting forms, and, sooner or later, they must learn it, 
either voluntarily or by compulsion. Virginia, in particu- 
lar, is a spoilt child, having been the pet of the General 
Government for the last sixty-eight years ; and like most 
other spoilt children, she has become forward, peevish, 
perverse, sulky and irreverent— not caring to know her 
duties, and failing to perform even those which she does 
know. Her superiors perceive that the abolition of sla- 
very would be a blessing to her ; she is, however, either 
too ignorant to understand the truth, or else, as is the 
more probable, her false pride and obstinacy restrain her 
from acknowledging it. What is to be done? Shall 
ignorance, or prejudice, or obduracy, or willful meanness, 
triumph over knowledge, and liberality, and guilelessness, 
and laudable enterprise ? No, never 1 Assured that Vir- 
ginia and all the other slaveholding States are doing 
wrong every day, it is our duty to make them do right, if 
we have the power ; and we believe we have the power 
now resident within their own borders. What are the 
opinions,, generally, of the non-slaveholding whites ? Let 
them speak. 



258 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 



CHAPTER VI. 

TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

<: Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets. 
Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, 
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement !" 

In quest of arguments against slavery, we have perused 
the works of several eminent Christian writers of different 
denominations, and we now proceed to lay before the reader 
the result of a portion of our labor. As it is the special 
object of this chapter to operate on, to correct and cleanse 
the consciences of slaveholding professors of religion, we 
shall adduce testimony only from the five churches to 
which they, in their satanic piety, mostly belong — the 
Presbyterian, the Episcopal, the Baptist, the Methodist, 
and the Roman Catholic — all of which, thank Heaven, are 
destined, at no distant day, to become thoroughly aboli- 
tionized. With few exceptions, all the other Christian 
sects are, as they should be, avowedly and inflexibly op- 
posed to the inhuman institution of slavery. The Con- 
gregational, the Quaker, the Lutheran, the Dutch and 
German Reformed, the Unitarian, and the Universalist, 
especially, are all honorable, able, and eloquent defenders 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 259 

)f the natural rights of man. "We will begin by intro- 
iucing a mass of 

PRESBYTERIAN TESTIMONY. 

|i The Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, one of the most 
learned Presbyterian preachers and commentators of the 
lay, says :- 

1 " There is a deep and growing conviction in the minds of the mass 
of mankind, that slavery violates the great laws of our nature ; 
that it is contrary to the dictates of humanity ; that it is essen- 
tially unjust, oppressive, and cruel ; that it invades the rights of 
liberty with which the Author of our being has endowed all hu- 
man beings ; and that, in all the forms in which it has ever ex- 
isted, it has been impossible to guard it from what its friends 
and advocates would call ' abuses of the sj r stem.' It is a viola- 
tion of the first sentiments expressed in our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and on which our fathers founded the vindication of 
their own conduct in an appeal to arms. It is at war with all 
that a man claims for himself and fur his own children ; and it is 
opposed to all the struggles of mankind, in all ages, for freedom. 
The claims of humanity plead against it. The struggles for free- 
dom everywhere in our world condemn it. The instinctive 
feeling in every man's own bosom in regard to himself is a con- 
demnation of it. The noblest deeds of valor, and of patriotism 
in our own land, and in all lands where men have struggled for 
freedom, are a condemnation of the system. All that is noble 
in man is opposed to it ; all that is base, oppressive, and cruel, 
pleads for it. 

" The spirit of the New Testament is against slavery, and the 
principles of the New Testament, if fairly applied, would abolish 
it. In the New Testament no man is commanded to purchase 
and own a slave ; no man is commended as adding anything to 
the evidences of his Christian character, or as performing the 
appropriate duty of a Christian, for owning one. No where in 
the New Testament is the institution referred to as a good one, 
or as a desirable one. It is commonly — indeed, it is almost uni- 



260 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

versally — conceded that the proper application of the principles 
of the New Testament would abolish slavery everywhere, or that. 
the state of things which will exist when the Gospel shall be i 
fairly applied to all the relations of life, slavery will not be foundi 
among those relations. 

" Let slavery be removed from the church, and let the voice of 
the church, with one accord, be lifted up in favor of freedom ;i 
let the church be wholly detached from the institution, and let. 
there be adopted by all its ministers and members an interpre-: 
tation of the Bible — as I believe there may be and ought to be — 
that shall be in accordance with the deep-seated principles of our; 
nature in favor of freedom, and with our own aspirations for lib- 
erty, and with the sentiments of the world in its onward pro- 
gress in regard to human rights, and not only would a very 
material objection against the Bible be taken away — and one 
which would be fatal if it were well founded — but the establish- 
ment of a very strong argument in favor of the Bible, as a reve-t' 
lation from God, would be the direct result of such a position." ' 

Thomas Scott, the celebrated English Presbyterian Com- 
mentator, says : — 

" To number the persons of men with beasts, sheep, and horses, 
as the stock of a farm, or with bales of goods, as the cargo of a 
ship, is, no doubt, a most detestable and anti-Christian practice." 

From a resolution denunciatory of slavery, unanimously 
adopted by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian" 
Church, in 1818, we make the following 1 extract : — 

'' We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human 
race by another as a gross violation of the most precious and sac- 
red rights of human nature, as utterly inconsistent with the law 
of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and 
as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the Gos- 
pel of Christ, which enjoins that ' all things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to 3 T ou, do ye even so to them.' * * * "VVf 
rejoice that the church to which we belong commenced, as early 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 261 

is any other in this country, the good work of endeavoring to 
nit an end to slavery, and that in the same work many of its 
□embers have ever since been, and now are, among the most ac- 
,ive. vigorous, and efficient laborers. * * * We earnestly exhort 
;hem to continue, and, if possible, to increase, their exertions to 
:ffect a total abolition of slavery." 

A Committee of the Synod of Kentucky, in an address 
;o the Presbyterians of that State, says : — 

" That our negroes will be worse off, if emancipated, is, we feel, 
jut a specious pretext for lulling our own pangs of conscience, 
u:d answering the argument of the philanthropist. None of us 
relieve that God has so created a whole race that it Is better for 
:hem to remain in perpetual bondage." 

EPISCOPAL TESTIMONY. 

bishop horsley says : — 

" Slavery is injustice, which no consideration of policy can ex- 
tenuate." 

bishop butler says : — 

" Despicable as the negroes may appear in our eyes, they are 
the creatures of God, and of the race of mankind, for whom Christ 
died, and it is inexcusable to keep them in ignorance of the end 
for which they were made, and of the means whereby they may 
become partakers of the general redemption." 

bishop porteus says : — 

'■ The Bible classes men-stealers or slave-traders among the 
murderers of fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals 
on earth." 

John Jay, Esq., of the City of New-York — a most exem- 
plary Episcopalian — in a pamphlet entitled, " Thoughts on 



262 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

the Duty of the Episcopal Church, in Eelation to Slavery," 

says : — 

u Alas ! for the expectation that she would conform to the spirit 
of her ancient mother ! She has not merely remained a mute and 
careless spectator of this great conflict of truth and justice with 
hypocrisy and cruelty, but her very priests and deacons may be 
seen ministering at the altar of slavery, offering their talents and 
influence at its unholy shrine, and openly repeating the awful 
blasphemy, that the precepts of our Saviour sanction the system 
of American slavery. Her Northern clergy, with rare exceptions, 
whatever they may feel on the subject, rebuke it neither in pub- 
lic nor in private, and her periodicals, far from advancing the 
progress of abolition, at times oppose our societies, impliedly de- 
fending slavery, as not incompatible with Christianity, and occa- 
sionally withholding information useful to the cause of freedom." 

A writer in a late number of " The Anti-Slavery Church- 
man," published in Geneva, Wisconsin, speaking of a cer- 
tain portion of the New Testament, says : — 

" This passage of Paul places necessary work in the hands of 
Gospel ministers. If they preach the whole Gospel, they must 
preach what this passage enjoins— and if they do this, they must 
preach against American slavery. Its being connected with pol- 
itics does not shield them. Political connections cannot place 
sin under protection. They cannot throw around it guards that 
the public teachers of morals may not pass. Sin is a violation 
of God's law— and God's law must be proclaimed and enforced 
at all hazards. This is the business of the messenger of God, 
and if anything stands in its way. it is his right, rather it is his 
solemn commission, to go forward— straightway to overpass the 
lines thai would shut him out, and utter his warnings. Many, 
sins there are. that, in like manner, might be shielded. Fashion, 
and rank, and business, are doing their part to keep much sin in 
respectability, and excuse it from the attacks of God's ministers. 
But what are these, that they should seal a minister's lips— what 
more are the wishes of politicians?" 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 263 

For further testimony from this branch of the Christian 
isystem, if desired, we refer the reader to the Rev. Dudley 
jA. Tyng, the Rev. Evan M. Johnson, and the Rev. J. Mc- 
iNamara, — all Broad Church Episcopalians, whose magic 
[eloquence and irresistible arguments bid fair, at an early 
jday, to win over to the paths of progressive freedom, truth, 
(justice and humanity, the greater number of their High 
land Low Church brethren. 

BAPTIST TESTIMONY. 

Concerning a certain text, the Rev. Mr. Brisbane, once 
a, slaveholding Baptist in South Carolina, says : — 

" Paul was speaking of the law as having been made for men- 
.stealers. Where is the record of that law ? It is in Exodus 
xxi. 16, and in these words : ' He that stealeth a man, and selleth 
thim, or if he be found in his possession, he shall surely be put 
i to death.' Here it will be perceived that it was a crime to sell 
[the man, for which the seller must suffer death. But it was no less 
: a crime to hold him as a slave, for this also was punishable with 
fdeath. A man may be kidnapped out of slavery into freedom. 
[There was no law against that. And why ? Because kidnap- 
'ping a slave and placing him in a condition of freedom, was only 
;to restore him to his lost rights. But if the man who takes him 
[becomes a slaveholder, or a slave seller, then he is a criminal, 
liable to the penalty of death, because he robs the man of liberty. 
Perhaps some will say this law was only applicable to the first 
bolder of the slave, that is, the original kidnapper, but not to his 
successors who might have purchased or inherited him. But 
what is k'inapp'mg? Suppose 1 propose to a neighbor to give 
him a certain sum of money if he will steal a white child in Car- 
olina and deliver him to me. He steals him; I pay him the 
imoney upon his delivering the child to me. ts it not my act as 
'fully as his? Am I not also the thief? But does it alter the 
!case whether I agree before hand or not, to pay him for the 



264 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

child 1 He steals him, and then sells him to me. He is found 
by his parents in my hands. Will it avail me to say I purchased 
him and paid my money for him ? Will it not be asked, Do you 
not know that a white person is not merchantable ? And shall I 
not have to pay the damage for detaining that child in my ser- 
vice as a slave ? Assuredly, not only in the eyes of the law, but 
in the judgment of the whole community, I would be regarded a 
criminal. So when one man steals another and offers him for 
sale, no one, in view of the Divine law, can buy him, for the rea- 
son that the Divine law forbids that man shall in the first place 
be made a merchantable article. The inquiry must be, if I buy, 
I buy in violation of the Divine law, and it will not do for me 
to plead that I bought him. I have him in possession, and that is 
enough, God condemns me for it as a man-stealer. My having 
him in possession is evidence against me, and the Mosaic law 
says, if he be found in my hands, I must die. Now, when Paul 
said the law was made for men-stealers, was it not also saying the 
law was made for slaveholders 1 I am not intending to ap- 
ply this term in harsh spirit. But I am bound, as I fear God, 
to spoak what I am satisfied is the true meaning of the apostle." 

In his " Elements of Moral Science," the Eev. Francis 'J 
Wayland, D.D., one of the most erudite and distinguished 
Baptists now living, says : — 

<( Domestic slavery proceeds upon the principle that the mas- 
ter has a right to control the actions, physical and intellectual, of 
the slave, for his own, that is, the master's individual benefit ; 
and, of course, that the happiness of the master, when it comes 
in competition with the happiness of the slave, extinguishes in 
the latter the right to pursue it. It supposes, at best, that the 
relation between master and slave, is not that which exists be- 
tween man and man, but is a modification, at least, of that which 
exists between man and the brutes. 

" Now, this manifestly supposes that the two classes of beiugs 
are created with dissimilar rights : that the master posseses 
rights which have never been conceded by the slave ; and that 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 265 

the slave has no rights at all over the means of happiness which 
God has given him, whenever these means of happiness can be 
rendered available to the service of his master. It supposes that 
the Creator intended one human being to govern the physical, 
intellectual and moral actions of as many other human beings as 
by purchase he can bring within his physical power ; and that 
one human being may thus acquire a right to sacrifice the happi- 
ness of any number of other human beings, for the purpose of 
promoting his own. Slavery thus violates the personal liberty 
of man as a physical, intellectual, and moral being. 

" It purports to give to the master a right to control the physical 
labor of the slave, not for the sake of the happiness of the slave, 
but for the sake of the happiness of the master. It subjects the 
amount of labor, and the kind of labor, and the remuneration 
! for labor, entirely to the will of the one party, to the entire ex- 
clusion of the will of the other party. 

" But if this right in the master over the slave be conceded, 
there are of course conceded all other rights necessary to insure 
its possession. Hence, inasmuch as the slave can be held in this 
condition only while he remains in the lowest state of mental im- 
becility, it supposes the master to have the right to control his 
intellectual development, just as far as maybe necessary to se- 
cure entire subjection. Thus, it supposes the slave to have no 
right to use his intellect for the production of his own happiness ; 
but, only to use it in such manner as may conduce to his master's 
profit. 

And, moreover, inasmuch as the acquisition of the knowledge 
of his duty to God could not be freely made without the acqui- 
sition of other knowledge, which might, if universal^ diffused, 
endanger the control of the master, slavery supposes the master 
to have the right to determine how much knowledge of his duty 
a slave shall obtain, the manner in which he shall obtain it, and 
the manner in which he shall discharge that duty after he shall 
have obtained a knowledge of it. It thus subjects the duty of 
man to God entirely to the will of man i and this for the sake of 
pecuniary profit. It renders the eternal happiness of the one 
party subservient to the temporal happiness of the other. And 

12 



266 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

this principle is commonly carried into effect in slaveholding 
countries. 

If argument were necessary to show that such a system as this 
must be at variance with the ordinance of God, it might be easily 
draw T n from the effects which it produces both upon morals and 
national wealth. 

Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties. 
By presenting objects on whom passion may be satiated without 
resistance and without redress, it cultivates in the master, pride, 
anger, cruelty, selfishness and licentiousness. By accustoming 
the slave to subject his moral principles to the will of another, 
it tends to abolish in him all moral distinction ; and thus fosters 
in him lying, deceit, h} T pocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to 
yield himself up to minister to the appetites of his master. 

The effects of slavery on national wealth, may be easily seen 
from the following considerations : — 

Instead of imposing upon all the necessity of labor, it restricts 
the number of laborers, that is of producers, within the smallest 
possible limit, by rendering labor disgraceful. 

It takes from the laborers the natural stimulus to labor, namely 
the desire in the individual of improving his condition ; and sub- 
stitutes, iu the place of it, that motive which is the least opera- 
tive and the least constant, namely, the fear of punishment with- 
out the consciousness of moral delinquency. 

It removes, as far as possible, from both parties, the disposition 
and the motives to frugality. Neither the master learns frugality 
from the necessity of labor, nor the slave from the benefits which 
it confers. And here, while the one party wastes from ignorance 
of the laws of acquisition, and the other because he can have no 
motive to economy, capital must accumulate but slowly, if indeed 
it accumulate at all. 

No country, not of great fertility, can long sustain a large slave 
population. Soils of more than ordinary fertility can not sustain 
it long, after the richness of the soil has been exhausted. Hence, 
slavey in this country is acknowledged to have impoverished 
many of our most valuable districts ; and, hence, it is continually 
migrating from the older settlements, to those new and untilled 
regions, where the accumulated manure of centuries of vegetation 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 2G7 

lias formed a soil, whose productiveness may, for a while, sustain 
a system at variance with the laws of nature. Many of our free 
and of our slaveholding States were peopled at ahout the same 
time. The slaveholding States had every advantage, both in soil 
and climate, over their neighbors. And yet the accumulation of 
capital has been greatly in favor of the latter. If any one doubts 
whether this difference be owing to the use of slave labor, let 
him ask himself what would have been the condition of the slave- 
holding States, at this moment, if they had been inhabited, from 
the beginning, by an industrious yeomanry; each one holding his 
own land, and each one tilling it with the labor of his own hands. 

The moral precepts of the Bible are diametrically opposed to 
slavery. They are, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and 
all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do 
ye even so unto them. 

The application of these precepts is universal. Our neighbor 
is every one whom we may benefit. The obligation respects all 
things whatsoever. The precept, then, manifestly, extends to 
men, as men, or men in every condition; and if to all things 
whatsoever, certainly to a thing so important as the right to per- 
sonal liberty. 

Again. By this precept, it is made our duty to cherish as 
tender and delicate a respect for the right which the meanest in- 
dividual posseses over the means of happiness bestowed upon him 
by God, as we cherish for our own right over our own means of 
happiness, or as we desire any other individual to cherish for it. 
Now, were this precept obeyed, it is manifest that slavery could 
not in fact exist for a single instant. The principle of the pre- 
cept is absolutely subversive of the principle of slavery. That 
of the one is the entire equality of right ; that of the other, the 
entire absorption of the rights of one in the rights of the other. 

If any one doubts respecting the bearing of the Scripture pre- 
cept upon this case, a few plain questions may throw additional 
light upon the subject. For instance, — 

" Do the precepts and the spirit of the Gospel allow me to de- 
rive my support from a system which extorts labor from my fel- 
low-men, without allowing them any voice in the equivalent 
which they shall receive; and which can only be sustained by 



268 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

keeping them in a state of mental degradation, and by shutting 
them out, in a great degree, from the means of salvation ? 

" Would the master be willing that another person should sub- 
ject him to slavery, for the same reasons, and on the same grounds, 
that he holds his slave in bondage ? 

t; Would the Gospel allow us, if it were in our power, to reduce 
our fellow-citizens of our own color to slavery ? If the gospel be 
diametrically opposed to the principle of slavery, it must be op- 
posed to the practice of slavery ; and therefore, were the princi- 
ples of the gospel fully adopted, slavery could not exist. 

<; The very course which the gospel takes on this subject, seems 
to have been the only one that could have been taken, in order 
to effect the universal abolition of slavery. The gospel was de- 
signed, not for one race, or for one time, but for all races, and for 
all times. It looked not at the abolition of this form of evil for 
that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence, the impor- 
tant object of its Author was, to gain it a lodgment in every part 
of the known world ; so that, by its universal diffusion among 
all classes of society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and 
subdue the evil passions of men ; and thus, without violence, 
work a revolution in the whole mass of mankind. 

<( If the system be wrong, as we have endeavored to show, if 
it be at variance with our duty both to God and to man, it must 
be abandoned. If it be asked when, I ask again, when shall a 
man begin to' cease doing wrong? Is not the answer, immedi- 
ately ? If a man is injuring us, do we ever doubt as to the time 
when he ought to cease 1 There is then no doubt in respect to 
the time when we ought to cease inflicting injury upon others." 

Abraham Booth, an eminent theological writer of the 
Baptist persuasion, says : — 

"I have not a stronger conviction of scarcely anything, than 
that slaveholding (except when the slave hns forfeited his lib- 
erty by crimes against society) is wicked and inconsistent with 
Christian character. To me it is evident, that whoever would 
purchase an innocent black man to make him a slave, would 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 269 

with equal readiness purchase a white one for the same purpose, 
could he do it with equal impunity, and no more disgrace." 

At a meeting of the General Committee of the Baptists 
of Virginia, in 1189, the following resolution was offered 
by Eld. John Lelancl, and adopted : — 

" Resolved, That slavery is a violent deprivation of tho rights 
of nature, and inconsistent with rcpuhlican government, and 
therefore we recommend it to our brethren to make use of every 
measure to extirpate this horrid evil from the land ; and pray 
Almighty God that our honorable legislature may have it in 
their power to proclaim the great jubilee, consistent with the 
principles of good policy." 

Methodist testimony. 

John Wesley, the celebrated founder of Methodism, 
says : — 

" Men buyers are exactly on a level with men stealers." 

Again, he says : — 

" American Slavery is the vilest that ever saw the sun ; it con- 
stitutes the sum of all villanies." 

The learned Dr. Adam Clarke, author of a voluminous 
commentary on the Scriptures, says : — 

" Slave-dealers, whether those who carry on the traffic in hu- 
man flesh and blood ; or those who steal a person in order to 
sell him into bondage ; or those who buy such stolen men or 
women, no matter of what color, or what country ; or the nations 
who legalize or connive at such traffic ; all these are men-steal- 
ers, and God classes them with the most flagitious of mortals." 

One of the rules laid down in the Methodist Discipline, 
as amended in 1784, was as follows : — 



2Y0 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

" Every member of our Society who has slaves in his posses- 
sion, shall, within twelve months after notice given to him by 
the assistant, legally execute and record an instrument, whereby 
he emancipates and sets free every slave in his possession." 

Another rule was in these words : — 

' : No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into 
Society, or to the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with 
these rules concerning slavery." 

The answer to the question — "What shall be done with 
those who buy or sell slaves, or give them away"— is 
couched in the following language : — 

" They are immediately to be expelled, unless they buy them 
on purpose to free them." 

In 1185, the voice of this church was heard as follows : — 

" We do hold in the deepest abhorrence the practice of slave- 
ry, and shall not cease to seek its destruction, by all wise and 
prudent means." 

In 1191, the Discipline contained the following whole- 
some paragraph : — 

"The preachers and other members of our Society are re- 
quested to consider the subject of negro slavery, with deep 
attention, and that they impart to the General Conference, 
through the medium of the Yearly Conferences, or otherwise, 
any important thoughts on the subject, that the Conference may 
have full light, in order to take further steps towards eradica- 
ting this enormous evil from that part of the Church of God with 
which they are connected. The Annual Conferences are directed 
to draw up addresses for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, 
to the legislatures of those States in which no general laws have 
been passed for that purpose. These addresses shall urge, in 
the most respectful but pointed manner, the necessity of a law 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 271 

for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Proper committees shall 
be appointed by the Annual Conferences, out of the most respect- 
able of our friends, for conducting the business ; and presiding 
elders, elders, deacons, and traveling preachers, shall procure as 
many proper signatures as possible to the addresses, and give all 
the assistance in their power, in every respect, to aid the com- 
mittees, and to forward the blessed undertaking. Let this be 
continued from year to year, till the desired end be accom- 
plished." 

CATHOLIC TESTIMONY. 

It lias been only about twenty years since Pope Greg- 
ory XVI. immortalized himself by issuing 1 the famous Bull 
against slavery, from which the following is an extract : — • 

" Placed as we are on the Supreme seat of the apostles, and 
acting, though by no merits of our own, as the vicegerent of 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, .. ho, through his great mercy, con- 
descended to make himself man, and to die for the redemption 
of the world, we regard as a duty devolving on our pastoral 
functions, that we endeavor to turn aside our faithful flocks en- 
tirely from the inhuman traffic in negroes, or any other human 
beings whatever. * * * In progress of time, as the 
clouds of heathen superstition became gradually dispersed, cir- 
cumstances reached that point, that during several centuries 
there were no slaves allowed amongst the great majority of the 
Christian nations ; but with grief we are compelled to add, that 
there afterwards arose, even among the faithful, a race of men, 
who, basely blinded by the appetite and desire of sordid lucre, 
did not hesitate to reduce, in remote regions of the earth, In- 
dians, negroes, and other wretched beings, to the misery of sla- 
very ; or finding the trade established and augmented, to assist 
the shameful crime of others. Nor did many of the most glori- 
ous of the Roman Pontiffs omit severely to reprove their con- 
duct, as injurious to their souls' health, and disgraceful to the 
Christian name. Among these may be especially quoted the 
bull of Paul III., which bears the date of the 29th of May, 1537, 



272 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

addressed to the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo ; and another 
still more comprehensive, by Urban YIIL, dated the 22d of April, 
1G36, to the collector Jurius of the Apostolic chamber in Portu- 
gal, most severely castigating by name those who presumed to 
subject either East or West Indians to slavery, to sell, buy, ex- 
change, or give them away, to separate them from their wives 
and children, despoil them of their goods and property, to bring 
or transmit them to other places, or by any means to deprive 
them of liberty, or retain them in slavery ; also most severely 
castigating those who should presume or dare to afford council, 
aid, favor or assistance, under any pretext, or borrowed color, to 
those doing the aforesaid ; or should preach or teach that it is 
lawful, or should otherwise presume or dare to co-operate, by 
any possible means, with the aforesaid. * * * Where- 
fore, we, desiring to divert this disgrace from the whole confines 
of Christianity, having summoned several of our venerable broth- 
ers, their Eminences the Cardinals, of the H. E. Church, to our 
council, and, having maturely deliberated on the whole matter, 
pursuing the footsteps of our predecessors, admonished by our 
apostolical authority, and urgently invoke in the Lord, all Chris- 
tians, of whatever condition, that none henceforth dare to subject 
to slavery, unjustly persecute, or despoil of their goods, Indians, 
negroes, or other classes of men, or be accessories to others, or 
furnish them aid or assistance in so doing ; and on no account 
henceforth to exercise that inhuman traffic by which negroes are 
reduced to slavery, as if they were not men, but automata or chat- 
tels, and are sold in defiance of all the laws of justice and human- 
ity, and devoted to severe and intolerable labors. We further 
reprobate, by our apostolical authority, all the above-described 
offences as utterly unworthy of the Christian name ; and by the 
same authority we rigidly prohibit and interdict all and every in- 
dividual, whether ecclesiastical or laical, from presuming to de- 
fend that commerce in negro slaves under pretence or borrowed 
color, or to teach or publish in any manner, publicly or privately, 
things contrary to the admonitions which we have given in these 
letters. 

" And, finally, that these, our letters, may be rendered more 
apparent to all, and that no person may allege any ignorance 



TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 213 

thereof, we decree and order that it shall he puhlishcd according 
to custom, and copies thereof be properly affixed to the gates of 
St. Feter and of the Apostolic Chancel, every and in like manner 
to the General Court of Mount Citatorio, and in the field of the 
Campus Florae, and also through the city, by one of our heralds, 
according to aforesaid custom. 

" Given at Rome, at the Palace of Santa Maria Major, under 
the seal of the fisherman, on the 3d day of December, 1837, and 
in the ninth year of our pontificate. 

" Countersigned by Cardinal A. Lambruschini." 

We have already quoted the language of Pope Leo X., 

who says : — 

"Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself cry 
out against the State of slavery." 

The Abbe Raynal says : — 

" He who supports slavery is the enemy of the human race. 
He divides it into two societies of legal assassins, the oppressors 
and the oppressed. I shall not be afraid to cite to the tribunal 
of reason and justice those governments which tolerate this 
cruelty, or which even are not ashamed to make it the basis of 
their power." 

From the proceedings of a Massachusetts Anti-slavery 
Convention in 1855, we make the following extract : — 

" Henry Kemp, a Roman Catholic, came forward to defend the 
Romish Church in reply to Mr. Foster. He claimed that the 
Catholic Church is thoroughly anti-slavery — as thoroughly as 
even his friend Foster." 

Thus manfully do men of pure hearts and noble minds, 

whether in Church or State, and without regard to sect or 

party, lift up their voices against the wicked and pernicious 

institution of human slavery. Thus they speak, and thus 

12* 



274 TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES. 

they are obliged to speak, if they speak at all ; it is only 
the voice of Nature, Justice, Truth, and Love, that issues 
from them. The divine principle in man prompts him to 
speak and strike for Freedom ; the diabolical principle 
within him prompts him to speak and strike for slavery. 

From those churches which are now — as all churches 
ought to be, and will be, ere the world becomes Christian- 
ized — thoroughly imbued with the principles of freedom, 
we do not, as already intimated, deem it particularly ne- 
cessary to bring forward new arguments in opposition to 
slavery. If, however, the reader would be pleased to hear 
from the churches to which we chiefly allude — and, by the 
bye, he might hear from them with much profit to himself 
■ — we respectfully refer him to Henry "Ward Beecher, 
George B. Cheever, Joseph P. Thompson, Theodore Parker, 
E. H. Chapin, and H. W. Bellows, of the North, and to M. 
D. Conway, John G. Fee, James S. Davis, Daniel Wilson, 
and W. E. Lincoln, of the South. All these reverend gen- 
tlemen, ministers of different denominations, feel it their 
duty to preach against slavery, and, to their honor be it 
said, they do preach against it with unabated zeal and 
success. Our earnest prayer is*; that Heaven may enable 
them, their cotemporaries and successors, to preach against 
it with such energy and effect, as will cause it to disap- 
pear forever from the soil of our Republic. 



BIBLE TESTIMONY. 215 



CHAPTER VII. 



BIBLE TESTIMONY 



Every person who has read the Bible, and who has a 
proper understanding of its leading moral precepts, feels, 
in his own conscience, that it is the only original and com- 
plete anti-slavery text-book. In a crude state of society — 
in a barbarous age — when men were in a manner destitute 
of wholesome laws, either human or divine, it is possible 
that a mild form of slavery may have been tolerated, and 
even regulated, as an institution clothed with the impor- 
tance of temporary recognition ; but the Deity never ap- 
proved it, and, for the very reason that it is impossible 
for him to do wrong, he never will, never can approve it. 
The worst system of servitude of which we have any ac- 
count in the Bible — and, by the way, it furnishes no 
account of anything so bad as slavery (the evil-one and 
his hot home alone excepted) — was far less rigorous and 
atrocious than that now established in the Southern States 
of this Confederacy. Even that system, however, the 
worst, which seems to have been practiced to a considera- 
ble extent by those venerable old fogies, Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, was one of the monstrous inventions of Satan 



216 BIBLE TESTIMONY. 

that God " winked" at ; and, to the mind of the biblical 
scholar, nothing' can be more evident than that He deter- 
mined of old, that it should, in due time, be abolished. 
To say that the Bible sanctions slavery is to say that the 
sun loves darkness ; to say that one man was created to 
domineer over another is to call in question the justice, 
mercy, and goodness of God. 

We will now listen to a limited number of the 

PKECEPTS AND SAYINGS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

" Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabit- 
ants thereof." 

" Let the oppressed go free." , 

" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 

" Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the 
person of the mighty ; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy 
neighbor." 

" The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all 
night until the morning." 

" Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways." 

i 

"Do justice to the afflicted and needy ; rid them out of the 
hand of the wicked." 

" Execute judgment and justice; take away your exactions 
from my people, saith the Lord God." 

" Therefore thus saith the Lord ; ye have not hearkened unto 
me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every 
man to his neighbor : behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith 
the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine ; and 
I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the 
earth." 



BIBLE TESTIMONY. 271 

,; He that stealeth a man. and selleth him, or if he be found in 
his hand, he shall surely be put to death." 

" Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall 
cry, but shall not be heard." 

"He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker." 

"I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against 
the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that 
oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, 
and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, 
saith the Lord of Hosts." 

" As the partridge setteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not ; so 
he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the 
midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool." 

And now we will listen to a few selected 

PRECEPTS AND SAYINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

" Call no man master, neither be ye called masters." 

" All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, 
do ye even so to them." 

" Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love ; 
in honor preferring one another." 

(: Do good to all men. as ye have opportunity." 

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath 
made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of 
bondage." 

" If thou mayest be made free, use it rather." 

" The laborer is worthy of his hire." 

" Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 

Some years ago a clerical lickspittle of the slave power 



278 BIBLE TESTIMONY. 

had the temerity to publish a book or pamphlet entitled 
" Bible Defence of Slavery," which the Baltimore Sim, in 
the course of a caustic criticism, handled in the following 
manner : — 

" Bible defence of slavery ! There is no such thing as a Bible 
defence of slavery at the present day. Slavery in the United 
States is a social institution, originating in the convenience and 
cupidity of our ancestors, existing by State laws, and recognized 
to a certain extent — for the recovery of slave property — by the 
Constitution. And nobody would pretend that, if it were inex- 
pedient and unprofitable for any man or any State to continue to 
hold slaves, they would be bound to do so on the ground of a 
" Bible defence" of it. Slavery is recorded in the Bible, and ap- 
proved, with many degrading characteristics. War is recorded 
in the Bible, and approved, under what seems to us the extreme 
of cruelty. But are slavery and war to endure for ever because 
we find them in the Bible ? or are they to cease at once and for 
ever because the Bible inculcates peace and brotherhood ?" 

Thus, in the last five chapters inclusive, have we intro- 
duced a mass of anti-slavery arguments, human and di- 
vine, that will stand, irrefutable and convincing, as long 
as the earth itself shall continue to revolve in its orbit. 
Aside from unaffected truthfulness and candor, no merit 
is claimed for anything we have said on our own account. 
With the best of motives, and in the language of nature 
more than that of art, we have simply given utterance to 
the honest convictions of our heart — being impelled to it 
by a long-harbored and unmistakable sense of duty which 
grew stronger and deeper as the days passed away. 

If half the time which has been spent in collecting and 
arranging these testimonies had been occupied in the 
composition of original matter, the weight of paper and 



BIBLE TESTIMONY. 219 

binding and the number of pages would have been much 
greater, but the value and the effect of the contents would 
have been far less. From the first, our leading motive 
has been to convince our fellow-citizens of the South, non- 
slaveholders and slaveholders, that slavery, whether con- 
sidered in all its bearings, or, setting aside the moral as- 
pect of the question, and looking at it in only a pecuniary 
point of view, is impolitic, unprofitable, and degrading ; 
how well, thus far, we have succeeded in our undertaking, 
time will, perhaps, fully disclose. 

In the words of a contemporaneous German writer, 
whose language we readily and heartily endorse, "It is 
the shame of our age that argument is needed against 
slavery." Taking things as they are, however, argument 
being needed, we have offered it ; but we have offered 
■ it from such sources as will, in our honest opinion, con- 
found the devil and his incarnate confederates. 

These testimonies, culled from the accumulated wisdom 
of nearly six thousand centuries, beginning with the great 
and good men of our own time, and running back through 
distant ages to Saint Paul, Saint John, and Saint Luke, 
; to Cicero, Plato, and Socrates, to David, Solomon, and 
Moses, and even to the Deity himself, are the pillars of 
strength and beauty upon which the popularity of our 
work will, in all probability, be principally based. If the 
ablest writers of the Old Testament ; if the eloquent pro- 
| phets of old ; if the renowned philosophers of Greece and 
' Rome ; if the heavenly-minded authors and compilers of 
i the New Testament ; if the illustrious poets and prose- 
writers, heroes, statesmen, sages of all nations, ancient 



280 BIBLE TESTIMONY. 

and modern ; if God himself and the hosts of learned 
ministers whom he has commissioned to proclaim his 
word — if all these are wrong-, then we are wrong ; on the 
other hand, however, if they are right, we are right ; for, 
in effect, we only repeat and endeavor to enforce their 
precepts. 

If we are in error, we desire to be corrected ; and, if it 
is not asking too much, we respectfully request the advo- 
cates of slavery to favor us with an expose of what they, 
in their one-sided view of things, conceive to be the ad- 
vantages of their favorite and peculiar institution. Such 
an expose, if skillfully executed, would doubtless be re- 
garded as the funniest novel of the times — a fit produc- 
tion, if not too immoral in its tendencies, to be incorpo- 
rated into the next edition of D'Israeli's curiosities of 
literature. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. *2* 1 



CHAPTER VIII 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



Under this heading we propose to introduce the remain- 
der of the more important statistics of the Free and of the 
Slave States ; — especially those that relate to Commerce, 
Manufactures, Internal Improvements, Education and Re- 
ligion. Originally it was our intention to devote a 
separate chapter to each of the industrial and moral in- 
terests above-named : but other considerations have so 
greatly encroached on our space, that wo are compelled to 
modify our design. To the thoughtful and discriminating 
reader, however, the chief statistics which follow will be 
none the less interesting for not being the subjects of an- 
notations. 

At present, all we ask of pro-slavery men, no matter in 
what part of the world they may reside, is to look these 
figures fairly in the face. We wish them to do it, in the 
first instance, not on the platforms of public debate, where 
the exercise of eloquence is too often characterized by 
violent passion and subterfuge, but in their own private 
apartments, where no eye save that of the All-seeing One 
will rest upon them, and where, in considering the rela- 
tions which they sustain to the past, the present, aud the 



282 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

future, an opportunity will be afforded them of securing 
that most valuable of all possessions attainable on earth, 
a conscience void of offence toward God and man. 

Each separate table or particular compilation of statis- 
tics will afford food for at least an hour's profitable reflec- 
tion ; indeed, the more these figures are studied, and the 
better they are understood, the sooner will the author's 
object be accomplished, — the sooner will the genius of 
Universal Liberty dispel the dark clouds of slavery. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



283 



TABLE NO. XXVI. 

TONNAGE, EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF THE FREE STATES- 



-1855. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania... 
Rhode Island... 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Tonnage. 


Exports. 


Imports. 


92,023 


$8,221,066 


$5,951,379 


137,170 


878,874 


036,826 


53,797 


547,053 


54,509 


3,698 






806,587 


4,851,207 


2,927,443 


970,727 


28 190,'. 125 


45,113.774 


69,490 


568.091 


281,379 


30,330 


1,523 


17,786 


121,020 


687 


1,473 


1,404,221 


113,731,238 


101,770,511 


91,007 


847,143 


600,056 


397,768 


6,274,338 


15,300,935 


51,038 


336,023 


530,387 


6,915 


2,895,463 


591,593 


15,624 


174,057 
$167,520,693 


48,159 


4.252,615 


$236,847,810 



TABLE NO. XXVII. 

TONNAGE, EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF THE SLAVE STATES 1855. 



States. 


Tonnage. 


Exports. 


Imports. 


Alabama 


36,274 

19,186 

14,835 

29,505 

22,680 

204,149 

234,805 

2,475 

60,592 

60,077 

60,935 

8,404 

8,812 

92,788 


$14,270,585 

68,087 
1,403,594 

7,543,519 

55,367,902 
10,395,984 

433,818 
12,700.250 

910,901 

4,3711.928 


$619,964 

5,821 

45,998 


Delaware 






273 716 


Louisiana 


12,900,821 

7,788,949 

1,661 

243,083 
1,588,512 

202 568 


Maryland 

Mississippi 

South Carolina 

Tennessee 




855,405 








855,517 


$107,480,088 


$24,586,528 



284 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. XXVIII. 

PRODUCT OF MANUFACTURES IN THE FREE STATES- 



-1850. 



States. 

California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts... . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire.. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.. . . 
Rhode Island — 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Val. of Annual 
products. 

$12,862,522 

45,110.102 
17,236,073 
18,922,651 

3,551,783 

24,664,135 

151,137,145 

10.976,894 

2:1,164,503 

39,713,586 

237,597,249 

62,647,259 

155,044,910 

22,093,258 

8,570. H20 

9,293,068 



Capital 
invested. 

$1,006,197 

23,890,348 

6,385,387 

7,941,602 

1,292,875 

14,700,452 

83,357.642 

6,534,250 

18,242,114 

22,184,730 

99,904,405 

29 019,538 

94,473,810 

12.923,176 

5,001,377 

3,382,148 



Hands 
employed. 



3,964 

47,770 

12,065 

14,342 

1,707 

28,078 

165,938 

9.290 

27,092 

37,311 

I9'.t,:!49 

51,489 

146,766 

20,881 

8.445 

6,089 



8842,586,058 | $430,240,051 



780,576 



TABLE NO. XXIX. 

PRODUCT OF MANUFACTURES IN THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennesse 

Texas., 

Virginia 



Val. of Annual 


Capital 


ll:l!:ds 


products. 


invested. 


employed. ] 


$4,538,878 


$3,450,606 


4.936-- 


607,436 


321,065 


903 


4,649,296 


2,978,945 


3,888- 


668,338 


547,060 


991 


7,086,525 


5,460,483 


8,378 


24,588,483 


12,350,734 


24,385' 


7,320,948 


5,318,074 


6,439 


32,477,702 


14,753,143 


30,124 


2,972,038 


1,833,420 


3,173' 


23,749,265 


9.079,695 


16,850 


9,111,245 


7 252 225 


12,444 


7,063,513 


6 056,865 


7,009 


9,728,438 


6,975,279 


12,032 


1,165,538 


539,290 


1.006 


29,705,387 


18,109,993 


29,109 


$165,413,027 


$95,029,879 


161,733 






FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



285 



TABLE NO. XXX. 
MILES OF CANALS AND RAILROADS IN THE FREE STATES 

1854-1857. 



States. 


Canals, miles, 
1854. 


Railroads, 

miles, 1857. 


Cost of Rail- 
roads, 1855. 




61 
100 
367 

50 
100 

11 
147 
989 
921 
936 

3,682 


22 

600 

2,524 

1.806 

253 

442 

1,285 

600 

645 

472 

2,700 

2,869 

2,407 

85 

515 

629 






$25,224,191 




55,663,656 




29,585,923 




2,300,000 




13,749,021 
59,167,781 
22,370,397 




15,860,949 

13 840.030 


Ohio 


111,882.503 
67,798,202 




94,657,075 
2,614,484 

17,998,835 
5,600,000 








17,855 


$538,313,647 



TABLE NO. XXXI. 

MILES OF CANALS AND RAILROADS IN THE SLATE STATES 

1854-1857. 



States. 


Canals, miles, 
1S54. 


Railroads, 
miles, 1S57. 


Cost of Rail- 
roads, 1855. 


Arkansas 

Delaware 

rlorida 


51 

14 

28 
486 
101 
184 

13 
50 

189 


484 

120 
86 

1,062 
306 
263 
597 
410 
189 
612 
706 
508 
57 

1,479 

6,859 


$3,986,208 

600,000 
250,000 




17,034,802 




6,179,072 




1.731,000 
12,654,333 

4,520,000 




1,000 000 




6,847.213 




13,547,093 

10,436,610 




16,466,250 








1,116 


252,581 



286 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. XXXII. 

BANK CAPITAL IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES- 
1855. 



Free Statoa. 



Slave Status. 






California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire.. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.... 

Rhode Island 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



$15,597,891 
2,513,790 
7,281,934 

7,301,252 

51,492,660 

980,416 

3.626,000 

5,314,885 

83,773,288 

7,166,581 

19,864,825 

17,511,162 

3.275,656 

1,400.000 



Total I $230,100,340 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri.. 

North Carolina.. 
South Carolina.. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



$2,296,400 
1,393,175 



13,413, 

10,369 

20,179 

10.411 

240 

1,215 

5.2D5 

16.603, 

6,717 



100 
717 
107 
874 
165 
398 
073 
253 
848 



Total . 



14,00 ! 



$102, 07 s. '.) 10 



TABLE NO. XXXIII. 

MILITIA FORCE OF THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STATES 1852. 



Free States. 


Slave Slates. 




| 




76,662 




51,649 | 




17,137 




170,359 

53,918 


Delaware 

Florida 


9,229 




12.122 






57,3ll 


62,5 8 




81.810 


Massachusetts... . 


119,690 j 




. 4:: 823 




63 938 




46,864 


New Hampshire.. 


32,151 




36,084 


New Jersey 


39,171 




61,000 




265,293 


North Carolina. . . 


79.44SJ 


Ohio 


176,455 
276,070 


South Carolina.. . 


55,209 


Pennsylvania 


71.252 


ELho le Island 


14,443 




19,766 




23,915 


Virginia 


125. 12S 




32,203 


Total 




Total 


1,381,843 


792,876 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



287 



TABLE NO. XXXIV. 

POST OFFICE OPERATIONS IN TIIE FREE STATES 1855. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts .. 

Michigan 

New- Hampshire. 

New-Jersey 

New- York 

Ohio , 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Stamps 


f Total Postage 


Cost of Trans. 


sold. 


collected. 


the mails. 


$81,437 


$234,591 


$135,386 


79,284 


179,230 


81,462 


105,252 


279,887 


280,038 


60,578 


180,405 


190,480 


28,198 


82,420 


84,428 


60,165 


151,358 


82,218 


259,062 


532,184 


153,091 


49,763 


142,188 


lis. -Jul 


38,387 


95,609 


46,631 


31,495 


109,697 


80,084 


542,498 


1,383,157 


481,410 


167. 958 


452,643 


421,870 


217,293 


583.(113 


251.833 


30,291 


58,624 


13,891 


36,314 


92,816 


64.437 


33,538 


112,903 
$4,670,725 


92,812 


SL 719,513 


$2,608,295 



TABLE NO. XXXV. 

POST OFFICE OPERATIONS IN THE SLAVE STATES 1855. 



States. 


Stamps 
sold. 


Total Postage 
collected. 


Cost of Trans. 
the mails. 




$44,514 

8,941 

7,298 

8,764 

73.880 

55,694 

50.778 

77,743 

31,182 

53.742 

34,235 

47,368 

48,377 

24,530 

96,799 


$104,514 

30,664 

19,614 

19,275 

149,063 

130,067 

133,753 

191,485 

78,739 

139.652 

72,759 

91 6 »0 

103,686 

70,436 

217,861 


226,816 


Arkansas 


117.659 




9,243 








216,003 




144. 1G1 




13 ! 810 
192.713 
170,785 


Missouri 


185,096 


North Carolina 


1 is 249 




192,216 


Tennessee 


116.091 


Texas 

Virginia 


209,936 
245 592 








$666,845 


$1,553,198 





288 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. XXXVI. 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF TIIE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois , 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.. . 
Rhode Island . . . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



IN umber. 


Teachers. 


Pupils. 


2 


2 


49 


1.656 


1,787 


71,269 


4,052 


4,248 


125,725 


4,822 


4.860 


161,500 


740 


828 


29,556 


4,042 


5,540 


192,81.| 


3,679 


4,443 


176.475 


2.714 


3,231 


110,451 


2 -i 


3,013 


75,643 


1,473 


1,674 


77.9:10 


11,580 


13,965 


675,221 


11,661 


12,886 


484.153 


9,061 


10,024 


413.706 


416 


518 


2::. 130 


2.731 


4.173 


93,45^ 


1,423 


1,529 


58.817 



62,43? 



72,621 2,769,901 



TABLE NO. XXXVII. 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



a 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina . 
South Carolina, 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Number. 

1,152 

353 

194 

69 

1,251 

2,234 
664 
898 
782 

1,570 

2,657 
724 

2,680 
349 

2,930 

18,507 



Teachers 



Pupils. 



1,195 


2 


355 


8,493 


214 


8,970 


73 


1,87| 


1,265 


32,703 


2,306 


71.429 




25,044 


986 


33,llf 


826 


is 746 


1,620 


51,754 


2,730 


104.095 


739 


17,838 


2,819 


104,117 


360 


7. '.'46 


2.997 


67,353 



19,307 



581,861 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



289 



TABLE NO. XXXVIII. 

LIBRARIES OTHER THAN PRIVATE IN THE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. ' 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. . 

Michigan 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania . . . 
Rhode Island.. . 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Number. 



14,911 



Volumes. 



164 
152 


165,318 
62,486 


151 

32 


68,403 
5,790 


236 


121,969 


1,462 


684,015 


417 
129 


107,943 
85,759 


128 


80,885 


11,013 
352 


1,760,820 
186,826 


393 


363,400 


96 


104,342 


96 
72 


64,641 
21,020 



3,888,234 



TABLE NO. XXXIX. 

LIBRARIES OTHER THAN PRIVATE IN THE SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.... 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Number. 


Volumes. 


56 


20,623 


3 


420 


17 


17,950 


7 


2,660 


38 


31,788 


80 


79,466 


10 


26,800 


124 


125,042 


117 


21,737 


97 


75,056 


38 


29,592 


26 


107,472 


34 


22,896 


12 


4,230 


54 


88,462 


695 


649,577 



13 



290 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



table no: xl: 

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS PUBLISHED IN THE 
PREE STATES 1850. 



States. 


Number. 


Copies Printed 
annually. 




7 

46 

107 

107 

29 

49 

202 

58 

38 

51 

428 

261 

309 

19 

35 

46 


761,200 




4,267.932 




5,102,276 




4,316.828 




1,512,800 




4,203,064 




64.820,564 
3,247,736 




3,067,552 




4,098,678 




115,385,473 


Ohio 


30,473,407 




84,898,672 
2,756,950 




2,567,662 




2,665,487 




1,790 


331,146,281 



TABLE NO. XLI. 

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS PUBLISHED IN THE 
SLAVE STATES 1850. 



States. 


Number. 


Copies Printed 
annually. 




60 
9 
10 
10 
51 
62 
55 
68 
50 
61 
51 
46 
50 
34 
87 

704 


2,662,741 

377,000 

421.200 

319,800 

4,070,868 

6,582,838 




12,416,224 




19,612,724 
1,752,504 
6,195.560 


North Carolina 


2,020,564 


South Carolina 


7,145,930 




6,940,750 
1,296,924 
9,223,068 








81,038,693 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



291 



TABLE NO. XLII. 

ILLITERATE WHITE ADULTS IN TIIE FREE STATES 1850. 



States. 


Native. 




2,201 
8 9 6 




34,107 

67,275 

7,043 

1 999 






Massachusetts 


1,055 
4 903 


New Hampshire 


893 


New Jersey 


8,370 
23 241 


.New York 


Ohio 


51,968 
41 944 


Pennsylvania 


Rhode Island 


981 


Vermont 


565 




1,459 

248,725 



Foreign. 

2,917 
4,013 
5,947 
3,265 
1,077 
4,148 

26,484 
3,009 
2,064 
5,878 

68,052 
9,062 

24,989 
2,359 
5,624 
4,902 



173,790 



Total. 

5,118 

4,739 

40,054 

70,540 

8,120 

6,147 

27,539 

7.912 

2J957 

14,248 

91,293 

61,030 

66,928 

3,340 

6,189 

6,361 

422,515 



TABLE NO. XLIII. 

ILLITERATE WHITE ADULTS IN THE SLATE STATES 1850. 



States. 



• Alabama 

Arkansas 

: Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi.... 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Native. 


Foreign. 
139 


Total. 


33,618 


33,757 


16,792 


27 


16,819 


4,132 


404 


4 536 


3,564 


295 


3,859 


40,794 


406 


41,200 


64,340 


2,347 


66,687 


14,950 


6,271 


21,221 


17,364 


3,451 


20,815 


13,324 


81 


13,405 


34,420 


1,861 


36,281 


73,226 


340 


73,566 


15,580 


104 


15,684 


77,017 


505 


77,522 


8,037 


2,488 


10,525 


75,868 


1,137 


77,005 



493,026 



19,856 



512,882 



292 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. XLIV. 

NATIONAL POLITICAL POWER OF THE FREE STATES- 



-1857. 



States. 


Senators. 


Rep. in lower 
House Cong. 


Electoral 
votes. 




2 

2 
2 

2 

2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 


2 

4 

9 

11 

2 

6 

11 

4 

3 

5 

33 

21 

25 

2 

3 
3 


4 




6 
11 




13 




4 




8 




13 
6 




5 

7 




35 


Ohio 


23 

27 




4 




5 
5 








32 


144 


176 



TABLE NO. XLV. 

NATIONAL POLITICAL POWER OF THE SLAVE STATES 1857. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas , 

Delaware — -. 

Florida I — 

Georgia , 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina 

South Carolina , 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Senators. 



30 



Rep. in lower 
House Cong. 



1 

1 
8 

10 
4 
6 
5 
7 
8 
6 

10 
2 

13 

90 



Electoral 

votes. 

9 

4 

3 

3 
10 
12 

6 

8 

7 

9 
10 

8 
12 

4 
15 

120 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



293 



TABLE NO. XLVI. 

POPULAR TOTE FOR PRESIDENT BY THE FREE STATES 1856. 



States. 


Republican. 

Fremont. 

20,339 

42,715 

96,189 

94,375 

43,954 

67,379 

108,190 

71,762 

38,345 

28.338 

276,907 

187.497 

147,510 

11,467 

39,561 

66,090 

1,340,618 


A merican. 
Fillmore. 

35,113 

2,615 

37,444 

22,386 

9,180 

3,325 

19,626 

1,660 

422 

24,115 

124,604 

28,126 

82,175 

1,675 

545 

579 


Democratic. 
Bll liaium. 

51,925 

34,995 

105,348 

118,670 

36,170 

39,080 

39,240 

52,136 

32,789 

46,943 

195.878 

170,874 

230,710 

6,580 

10,569 

52,843 


Total. 


Connecticut 

Illinois 


107,377 

80,325 

238,981 

235 431 




89,304 




109,784 


Massachusetts. . . 
New Hampshire.. 

Pennsylvania.. . . 
Rhode Island.. . . 


167,056 

125,558 

71,556 

99,396 

597,389 

386,497 

460,395 

19,722 

50,675 

119,512 




393,590 


1,224,750 


2,958,958 



TABLE NO. XLVII. 

POPULAR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT BY THE SLAVE STATES 1856. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky , 

Louisiana , 

Maryland , 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina. . 
South Carolina*. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



* No popular vote. 



Republican. 


American. I 


Democratic. 




Fremont. 


Fillmore. 
28.552 


Buchanan. 
46,739 






75,291 




10.787 


21,910 


32,697 


308 


6,175 


8,004 


14,487 




4,833 


6,358 


11,191 




42.228 


56,578 


98,806 


314 


67,416 


74,642 


142,372 




20,709 


22,164 


42,873 


281 


47,460 


39,115 


86,856 




24,195 


35,446 


59.641 




48,524 


58,164 


106,688 




36,886 


48,246 


85,132 




66,178 


73,638 


139,816 




15,244 


28,757 


44.001 


291 


60,278 


89,826 


150,395 



1,194 



479,465 



609,587 I 1,090,246 



294 



FKEE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. XLVIII. 

VALUE OF CHURCHES IN THE FREE AND IN THE SLAVE STATES 

1850. 



Free States. | 


Blave St 


ites. 




$288,400; 

3,599,330 

1,532,305, 

1,568,906 
235,412. 

1,794,209^ 

10,504,888 

793,180 

1,433,266 

3,712,863 
21,539,561 

5,860,059 
11,853,291 

1,293,6C0 ! 

1,251,6551 
512.552 1 








$1,244,741 
149,686 






340,345 




192,600 


Massachusetts 




1,327,112 
2 295,353 
1,940,495 


New Hampshire... 
Ohio 


North Carolina.. . . 
South Carolina... . 


3,974,116 

832,622 

1,730,135 

907,785 




2,181,476 
1,246,951 




408,944 


Total 


2,902,220 


Total 


$67,773,477 


$21,674,581 



TABLE NO. XLIX 

PATENTS ISSUED ON NEW INVENTIONS IN THE FREE AND IN 
THE SLAVE STATES 1856. 



Free States. 



Slave States. 



California 

Connecticut 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts. .. 

Michigan 

New Hampshire.. 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.... 
Rhode Island.... 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 

Total.. .., 




Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

North Carolina 
South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 




Total 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. L. 

BIBLE CAUSE AND TRACT CAUSE IN THE FREE STATES 1855. 



States. 



California 

Connecticut , 

Illinois , 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Maine 

Massachusetts . . 

Michigan 

New-Hampshire. 

New-Jersey 

New-York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island... 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 



Contribu. for 


Contribu. for 


the Bible Cause. 


the Tract Cause. 


SI, 900 


$ 5 


24,528 


15,872 


28,403 


3,786 


6,755 


1,491 


4,216 


2,005 


5,449 


2,981 


43,444 


11,492 


5,554 


1,114 


6,271 


1,288 


15,475 


3,546 


123,386 


61,233 


25,758 


9,576 


25,360 


12,121 


2,669 


2,121 


5,709 


2,867 


4,790 


474 



$319,667 



$131,972 



TABLE NO. LI. 

BIBLE CAUSE AND TRACT CAUSE IN THE SLAVE STATES 1855. 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky ,,,„ . 

Loirisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi. ... 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Contribu. for 


Contribu. for 


the Bible Cause. 


the Tract Cause. 


$3,351 


4,77 


2,950 


110 


1,037 


163 


1,957 


5 


4,532 


1,468 


5,956 


1,366 


1,810 


1,099 


8,909 


5,365 


1,067 


267 


4,711 


936 


6,197 


1,419 


3,984 


3,222 


8,383 


1,807 


3,985 


127 


9,296 


6,894 



$68,125 



^24,725 



296 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. LII. 

MISSIONARY CAUSE AND COLONIZATION* CAUSE IN THE 
FREE STATES 1855-1856. 



States. 


Contributions for 
Miss'y purposes, 1855. 


Contributions for 
Coloniza. pur., 1858. 




$ 192 
48,044 
10,040 

4,705 

1,750 

13,929 

128,505 

4,935 
11,963 
19,946 
172,115 
19,890 
43,412 

9,440 
11,094 

2,216 


$ 1 




9,233 

543 

34 

3 




1,719 

1,422 

4 




1,130 
3,261 


Ohio 


24,371 

2,687 




4,287 




2,125 
304 
806 








$502,174 


$51,930 



TABLK NO. LIII. 

MISSIONARY CAUSE AND COLONIZATION* CAUSE IN THE 
•SLAVE STATES — 1855-1856. 



States 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi .... 

Missouri 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



Contributions for 


Contributions for 


Miss'y purposes, 1855. 


Coloniza. pur., 1856. 


$5,963 




$1,113 


455 




1 


1,003 




250 


340 




13 


9,846 




5,323 


6,953 




4,436 


334 




871 


20,677 




406 


4,957 




2,177 


2,712 




313 


6,010 




969 


15,248 




129 


4,971 




1,611 


349 




6 


22,106 




10,000 



$101,934 
* For colonizing free blacks in Liberia. 



$27,618 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



297 



TABLE NO. LIV. 

DEATHS IN THE FREE STATES' — 1850. 



States. 


Number of 
deaths. 

5,781 

11,619 

12,728 

2,044 

7,545 

19,414 

4,520 

4,268 

6,467 

44,339 

28,949 

28,318 

2,241 

3,132 

2,884 


Ratio to the Number 
living. 








64.13 

73 28 




77 65 




94 03 




77 29 




51.23 
88 19 


New York 


74.49 
75.70 
69 85 


Ohio, 


68.41 
81 63 


Rhode Island 


65.83 




100.13 

105.82 




184,249 


72.91 



TABLE NO. LV. 

DEATHS IN THE SLATE STATES 1850.* 



States. 


Number of 
deaths. 


Ratio to the Number 

living. 




9,084 

2,987 

1,209 

933 

9,920 

15,206 

11,948 

9,594 

8,711 

12,211 

10,207 

7,997 

11,759 

3,046 

19,053 


84.94 
70.18 




75.71 




93.67 
91.93 




64.60 




42.85 
60.77 
69.93 




55.81 




85.12 




83.59 
85.34 
69.79 




74.61 








133,865 


71.82 



* For an explanation of this Table see the nest six pages. 



298 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

TABLE NO. LVI. 

FREE WHITE MALE PERSONS OVER FIFTEEN YEARS OF AGE 



ENGAGED IN AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER OUT-DOOR LABOR IN THE 
SLAVE-STATES 1850. 


States. 


No. engaged 
in 

Agriculture. 


No. engaged 
in other out- 
door labor. 


Total. 




67,742 

28,436 

6,225 

5,472 

82,107 

110,119 
11,524 
24,672 
50,028 
64,292 
76,338 
37,612 

115,844 
24,987 
97,654 


7,229 

5,596 

4,184 

2,598 

11.054 

26,308 

13,827 

17,146 

5,823 

19,900 

21,876 

6,991 

16,795 

22,713 

33,928 


74,971 
34,032 




10,409 




8,070 
93,161 




136,427 
25,351 


Missouri 


41,818 
55,851 
84,192 


North Carolina 


98,214 




44,603 




132,( 39 

47,700 




131,582 








803,052 


215,968 


1,019,020 



Too hot in the South, and too unhealthy there — white 
men " can't stand it" — negroes only can endure the heat 
of Southern climes ! How often are our ears insulted 
with such wickedly false assertions as these ! In what 
degree of latitude — pray tell us — in what degree of lati- 
tude do the rays of the sun become too calorific for white 
men ? Certainly in no part of the United States, for in 
the extreme South we find a very large number of non- 
slaveholding whites over the age of fifteen, who derive 
their entire support from manual labor in the open fields. 
The sun, that bugbear of slaveholding demagogues, shone 
on more than one million of free white laborers — mostly 
agriculturists — in the slave States in 1850, exclusive of 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 299 

those engaged iu commerce, trade, manufactures, the me- 
chanic arts, and mining. Yet, notwithstanding all these 
instances of exposure to his wrath, we have had no intel- 
ligence whatever of a single case of coup de so-leil. Ala- 
bama is not too hot ; sixty-seven thousand white sons of 
toil till her soil. Mississippi is not too hot ; fifty-five thou- 
sand free white laborers are hopeful devotees of her out- 
door pursuits. Texas is not too hot ; forty-seven thousand 
free white persons, males, over the age of fifteen, daily 
perform their rural vocations amidst her unsheltered air. 

It is stated on good authority that, in January, 1856, 
native ice, three inches thick, was found in Galveston 
Bay ; we have seen it ten inches thick in North Carolina, 
with the mercury in the thermometer at two degrees be- 
low zero. In January, 1857, while the snow was from 
three to five feet deep in many parts of North Carolina, 
the thermometer indicated a degree of coldness seldom 
exceeded in any State in the Union — thirteen degrees be- 
low zero. The truth is, instead of its being too hot in the 
South for white men, it is too cold for negroes ; and we 
long to see the day arrive when the latter shall have en- 
tirely receded from their uncongenial homes in America, 
and given full and undivided place to the former. 

Too hot in the South for white men ! It is not too hot 
for white women. Time and again, in different counties 
in North Carolina, have we seen the poor white wife of 
the poor white husband, following him in the harvest-field 
from morning till night, binding up the grain as it fell 
from his cradle. In the immediate neighborhood from 
which we hail, there are not less than thirty young 



300 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

women, non-slaveholding whites, between the ages of fif- 
teen and twenty-five — some of whom are so well known 
to us that we could call them by name — who labor in the 
fields every summer ; two of them in particular, near 
neighbors to our mother, are in the habit of hiring them- 
selves out during harvest-time, the very hottest season of 
the year, to bind wheat and oats — each of them keeping 
up with the reaper ; and this for the paltry consideration 
of twenty-five cents per day. 

That any respectable man — any man with a heart or a 
soul in his composition — can look upon these poor toiling 
white women without feeling indignant at that accursed 
system of slavery which has entailed on them the miseries 
of poverty, ignorance, and degradation, we shall not do 
ourself the violence to believe. If they and their hus- 
bands, and their sons and daughters, and brothers and 
sisters, are not righted in some of the more important par- 
ticulars in which they have been wronged, the fault shall 
lie at other doors than our own. In their behalf, chiefly, 
have we written and compiled this work ; and until our 
object shall have been accomplished, or until life shall 
have been extinguished, there shall be no abatement in 
our efforts to aid them in regaining the natural and inali- 
enable prerogatives out of which they have been so infam- 
ously swindled. We want to see no more plowing, or 
hoeing, or raking, or grain-binding, by white women in 
the Southern States ; employment in cotton-mills and other 
factories would be far more profitable <and congenial to 
them, and this they shall have within a short period after 
slavery shall have been abolished. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 301 

Too hot in the South for white men ! What is the tes- 
timony of reliable Southrons themselves ? Says Cassius 
M. Clay, of Kentucky : — 

'• In the extreme South, at New Orleans, the laboring men— 
the stevedores and hackmen on the levee, where the heat is in- 
tensified by the proximity of the red brick buildings, are all 
white men, and they are in the full enjoyment of health. But 
how about Cotton ? I am informed by a friend of mine — him- 
self a slaveholder, and therefore good authority — that in North- 
western Texas, among the German settlements, who true to their 
national instincts, will not employ the labor of a slave— they pro- 
duce more cotton to the acre, and of a better quality, and selling 
at prices from a cent to a cent and a half a pound higher than 
that produced by slave labor." 

Says Gov. Hammond, of South Carolina:— 

" The steady heat of our summers is not so prostrating as the 
short, but frequent and sudden, bursts of Northern summers." 

In an extract which may be found in our second chap- 
ter, and to which we respectfully refer the reader, it will 
be seen that this same South Carolinian, speaking of " not 
less than fifty thousand" non-slaveholding whites, says — 
" most of these now follow agricultural pursuits." 

Says Dr. Cartwright of New Orleans : — 

" Here in New Orleans, the larger part of the drudgery— work 
requiring exposure to the sun, as railroad-making, street-paving, 
dray-driving, ditching and building, is performed by white peo- 
ple." 

To the statistical tables which show the number of 
deaths in the free and in the slave States in 1850, we 
would direct special attention. Those persons, particu- 



302 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

larly the propogandists of negro slavery, who, heretofore, 
have been so dreadfully exercised on account of what they 
have been pleased to term " the insalubrity of Southern 
climes," will there find something to allay their fearful 
apprehensions. A critical examination of said tables will 
disclose the fact that, in proportion to population, deaths 
occur more frequently in Massachusetts than in any South- 
ern State except Louisiana ; more frequently in New York 
than in any of the Southern States, except Maryland, Mis- 
souri, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas ; more frequently 
in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, and in Ohio, than in 
either Georgia, Florida, or Alabama. Leaving Wisconsin 
and Louisiana out of the account, and then comparing the 
bills of mortality in the remaining Northern States, with 
those in the remaining Southern States, we find the differ- 
ence decidedly in favor of the latter ; for, according to 
this calculation, while the ratio of deaths is as only one to 
14. GO of the living population in the Southern States, it is 
as one to 72.39 in the Northern. 
Says Dr. J. C. Nott, of Mobile :— 

" Heat, moisture, animal and vegetable matter are said to be 
the elements which produce the diseases of the South, and yet 
the testimony in proof of the health of the banks of the lower 
portion of the Mississippi River, is too strong to be doubted, — 
not only the river itself but also the numerous bayous which me- 
ander through Louisiana. Here is a perfectly flat alluvial coun- 
try, covering several hundred miles, interspersed with intermina- 
ble lakes, lagunes and jungles, and still we are informed by Dr. 
Cartwright, one of the most acute observers of the day, that this 
country is exempt from miasmatic disorders, and is extremely 
healthy. His assertion has been confirmed to me by hundreds 
of witnesses, and we know from our own observation, that the 
population present a robust and healthy appearance." 



FREE FIGURES AND SLATE. 303 

But the best part is yet to come. In spite of all the 
blatant assertions of the oligarchy, that the climate of the 
South was arranged expressly for the negroes, and that 
the negroes were created expressly to inhabit it as the 
healthful servitors of other men, a carefully kept register 
of all the deaths that occurred in Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, for the space of six years, shows that, even in that 
locality which is generally regarded as so unhealthy, the 
annual mortality was much greater among the blacks, in 
proportion to population, than among the whites. Dr. Nott 
himself shall state the facts. He says : — 

" The average mortality for the last six years in Charleston 
for all ages is 1 in 51, including all classes. Blacks alone 1 in 
44 ; whites alone, 1 in 58 — a very remarkable result, certainly. 
This mortality is perhaps not an unfair test, as the population 
during the last six years has been undisturbed by emigration and 
acclimated in a greater proportion than at any former period." 

Numerous other authorities might be cited in proof of 
the general healthiness of the climate south of Mason and 
Dixon's line. Of 127 remarkable cases of American lon- 
gevity, published in a recent edition of Blake's Biographi- 
cal Dictionary, 68 deceased centenarians are credited to 
the Southern States, and 59 to the Northern— the list being 
headed with Betsey Trantham, of Tennessee — a white wo- 
man, who died in 1834, at the extraordinarily advanced age 
of 154 years 



H04 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



TABLE NO. LVII. 



NATIVES OF THE SLAVE STATES IN THE FREE STATES, AND NATIVES 
OF THE FREE STATES IN THE SLAVE STATES. 1850. 



States. 


Natives of the 
Slave States. 


States. 


Natives of the 
Free States. 




24,055 

1,390 

144,809 

176,581 

31,392 

458 

2,980 

3,634 

215 

4,110 

12,625 

152,319 

47,180 

982 

140 

6,353 




4,947 
7,965 
6,996 




Florida 


1,718 




4,249 






31,340 
14,567 
23,815 




Missouri 


New-Hampshire 

New- York 


4,517 

55,664 

2,167 




Ohio 


2,427 




6,571 

9,982 
28,999 








609,223 


205,924 



This last table, compiled from the 116th page of the 
Compendium of the Seventh Census, shows, in a most lucid 
and startling manner, how negroes, slavery and slave- 
holders are driving the native non-slaveholding whites 
away from their homes, and keeping at a distance other 
decent people. From the South the tide of emigration still 
flows in a westerly and north-westerly direction, and it 
will continue to do so until slavery is abolished. The fol- 
lowing remarks, which we extract from an editorial article 
that appeared in the Memphis (Tenn.) Bulletin near the 
close of the year 1856, are worth considering in this con- 
nection : — 

" We have never before observed so lars;e a number of immi- 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 305 

grants going westward as are crossing the river at this point 
daily, the two ferryboats — sometimes three — going crowded from 
early morn until the boats cease making their trips at night. It 
is no uncommon sight to see from twenty to forty wagons en- 
camped on the bluff for the night, notwithstanding there has 
been a steady stream going across the river all day, and yet the 
cry is, still they come." 

About the same time the Cassville (Geo.) Standard 
spoke with surprise of the multitude of emigrants crowd- 
ing the streets of that town bound for the far West. 

Prof. B. S. Hedrick, late of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 

says : — • 

" Of my neighbors, friends and kindred, nearly one-half have 
left the State since I was old enough to remember. Many is the 
time I have stood by the loaded emigrant wagon, and given the 
parting hand to those whose faces I was never to look upon 
again. They were going to seek homes in the free-, West, know- 
ing, as they did, that free and slave labor could uT>t both exist 
and prosper in the same community. If any one thinks that I 
speak without knowledge, let him refer to the last census. He 
will there find that in 1850 there were fifty-eight thousand native 
North Carolinians living in the free States of the West— thirty- 
threc-thousand in Indiana alone. There were, at the same time, 
one hundred and eighty thousand Virginians living in the free 
States. Now, if these people were so much in love with the f in- 
stitution,' why did they not remain where they could enjoy its 
blessings ? 

" From my knowledge of the people of North Carolina, I be- 
lieve that the majority of them who will go to Kansas during 
the next five years, would prefer that it should be a free State. 
I am sure that if I were to go there I should vote to exclude 
slavery." 

For daring to have political opinions of his own, and 
because he did not deem it his duty to conceal the fact 



306 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



that he loved liberty better than slavery, the gallant au- 
thor of the extract above quoted was peremptorily dis- 
missed from his post of analytical and agricultural chem- 
ist in the University of North Carolina, ignominiously 
subjected to the indignities of a mob, and then savagely 
driven beyond the borders of his native State. His vil- 
lainous persecutors, if not called to settle their accounts 
in another world within the next ten years, will probably 
survive to repent of the enormity of their pro-slavery 
folly. 

TABLE NO. LVIII. 

VALUE OF THE SLAVES AT $400 PER HEAD. 1850.* 



States. 


Value of the Slaves 
at $400 per head. 


Val. of Real and Per. 
Estate, lees the val. of 
slaves at $400 p. head. 


Delaware 


$137,137,600 

18,840,000 

916,000 

15,724,000 

152.672,800 
84,392,400 
97,928,600 
86,147,200 

123,951,200 
34,968,800 

115,419,200 

153,993,600 
95,783,600 
23,264,400 

189,011,200 


$81,066,732 

21,001,025 

17,939,863 

7,474,734 

182,752 914 


Georgia 


Louisiana 


217,236.056 
136 075 164 


Mississippi 

Missouri 


183,070.164 
105,000,000 
102 278,907 


North Carolina 


111,381 272 


South Carolina 


134,264,094 
111,671,104 

82,097,940 ' 
202 634 638 










$1,280,145,600 


$1,655,945,137 



Tables 34 and 35 show that, on account of the pitiable 
poverty and ignorance of slavery, the mails were trans- 
ported throughout the Southern States, during the year 



* It is intended that this Table shall he considered in connection with Tables 
XX and XXI, on page 80. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



307 



1855, at an extra cost to the General Government of more 
than six hundred thousand dollars 1 In the free States, 
postages were received to the amount of more than two 
millions of dollars over and above the cost of transporta- 
tion. 

To Dr. G. Bailey, editor of the National Era, Washington 
city, D. C, we are indebted for the following useful and 
interesting statistics, to which some of our readers will 
doubtless have frequent occasion to refer :— 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Appointed. 

March 4, 1789 

" 3 1797 
March 4, 1797 

" 3, 1801 
March 4, 1801 

« 3, 1809 
March 4, 1809 

" 3. 1817 
March 4, 1817 

" 3, 1825 
March 4, 1825 

" 3, 1829 
March 4, 1829 

" 3, 1837 
March 4, 1837 

" 3, 1841 
March 4, 1841 

" 3, 1845 
March 4, 1845 

" 3 1849 
March 4, 1849 

" 3, 1853 
March 4, 1853 

" 3, 1857 
March 4, 1857 
3, 1801 



/ 



George Washington, Virginia.^ 

John Adams, Massachusetts. 

Thomas Jefferson, Virginia. 

James Madison, Virginia. 

James Monroe, Virginia. ■ 
> John Q. Adams, Massachusetts. 

Andrew Jackson, Tennessee. :... 
■ Martin Van Buren, New York. 

William H. Harrison, Ohio. 

James K. Polk, Tennessee. 

Zachary Taylor, Louisiana. 

Franklin Pierce, New Hampshire. 

James Buchanan, Pennsylvania. 



At the close of the term for which Mr. Buchanan is elected, 



308 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

it will have been seventy-two years since the organization of the 
present Government. 

In that period, there have been eighteen elections for Presi- 
dent, the candidates chosen in twelve of them being Southern 
men and slaveholders, in six of them Northern men and non- 
slaveholders. 

No Northern man has ever been re-elected, but five Southern 
men have been thus honored. 

Gen. Harrison, of Ohio, died one month after his inauguration, 
Gen. Taylor, of Louisiana, about four months after his inaugura- 
tion. In the former case, John Tyler, of Virginia, became act- 
ing President, in the latter, Millard Fillmore, of New York. 

Of the seventy-two years, closing with Mr. Buchanan's term, 
should he live it out, Southern men and slaveholders have occu- 
pied the Presidential chair forty-eight years and three months, 
or a little more than two-thirds of the time. 

THE SUPREME COURT. 

The judicial districts are organized so as to give five judges 
to the slave States, and four to the free, although the population, 
wealth, and business of the latter are far in advance of those of 
the former. The arrangement affords, however, an excuse for 
constituting the Supreme Court, with a majority of judges from 
the slaveholding States. 

MEMBER S. 

Chief Justice — R. B. Taney, Maryland. 
Associate Justice — J. M. Wayne, Georgia. 

" " John Catron, Tennessee. 

u " P. V. Daniel, Virginia. 

" " John A. Campbell, Alabama. 

" " John McLean, Ohio. 

" " S. Nelson, A T ew York. 

" " R. C. Grier, Pennsylvania. 

" " B. R. Curtis, Massachusetts. 

Reporter — B. C. Howard, Maryland. 
Clerk— W. T. Carroll. D. C. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



309 



SECRETARIES OF STATE. 

The highest office in the Cahinet is that of Secretary of State, 
who has under his charge the foreign relations of the country. 
Since the year 1789, there have been twenty-two appointments 
to the office — fourteen from slave States, eight from free. Or, 
counting by years, the post has been filled by Southern men and 
slaveholders very nearly forty years out of sixty-seven, as follows : 

Appointed. 

Thomas Jefferson, Virginia. 
E. Randolph, Virginia. 
T. Pickering, Massachusetts. 
J. Marshall, Virginia. * 
James Madison, Virginia. 
R. Smith, Maryland. 
James Monroe, Virginia. ' 
.« « « 

J. Q. Adams, Massachusetts. 
Henry Clay, Kentucky. 
Martin Van Buren, New York. 
E. Livingston, Louisiana. 
Louis McLane, Delaware. 
J. Forsyth, Georgia. 
Daniel Webster, Massachusetts. 
A. P. Upshur, Virginia. 
J. C. Calhoun. South Carolina. 
James Buchanan, Pennsylvania. 
J. M. Clayton, Delaware. 
Daniel Webster, Massachusetts. 
E. Everett, Massachusetts. 
W. L. Marcy, New York. 



Sept. 26 


1789, 


Jan. 2 


1794, 


Dec. 10 


1795. 


May 13 


1800J 


March 5 


1801, 


March 6 


1809, 


April 2 


1811, 


Feb. 28 


1815, 


March 5 


1815, 


March 7 


1825, 


March 6 


1829, 


May 24 


1831, 


May 29 


1833, 


June 27 


1834, 


March 5 


1841, 


July 24 


1843, 


March 6 


1844, 


March 5 


1845, 


March 7 


1849, 


July 20 


1850. 


Dec. 9 


1851,' 


March 5 


1853, 



PRESIDENTS PRO TEM. OF THE SEXATE. 

Since the year 1809, every President pro iem. of the Senate of 
the United States has been a Southern man and slaveholder, with 
the exception of Samuel L. Southard, of New Jersey, who held 
the office for a very short time, and Mr. Bright, of lndiana,who has 
held it for one or two sessions, we believe, having been elected, 



510 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



however, as a known adherent of the slave interest, helieved to 
he interested in slave " property." 

SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



April, 1789 
March 3, 1791 
Oct. 24. 1791 
March 2. 1793 
Dec. 2, 1793 
March 3. 1795 
Dec. 7, 1795 
March 3, 1797 
May 15, 1797 
March 3, 1799 
Dec. 2, 1799 
March 3, 1801 
Dec. 7, 1801 
March 3, 1807 
Oct. 26, 1807 
March 3, 1811 
March 4. 1811 
Jan. 19, 1814 
Jan. 19, 1814 
March 2, 1815 
Dec. 4, 1815 
Nov. 13, 1820 
Nov. 15. 1S20 
March 3, 1821 
Dec. 3, 1821 
March 3, 1823 
Dec. 1, 1823 
March 3, 1825 
Dec. 5, 1825 
March 3. 1827 
Dec. 3, 1827 
June 2, 1834 
June 2, 1834 
March 3. 1835 
Dec. 7, 1835 
March 3, 1839 
Dec. 16, 1839 
March 3, 1811 
May 31, 1841 
March 3, 1813 



I F. A. Muhlenherg, Penn. 
I J. Trumbull, Connecticut. 
\ F. A. Muhlenberg, Penn. 
I Jonathan Dayton, New Jersey. 
) <i « « 

I Theodore Sedgwick, Mass. 

I Nathaniel Macon, N. Car. 

I J. B. Varnum, Massachusetts. 

\ lltjnry Clay, Kentucky. 

I Langdon Cheves, S. Car. 

I HeAry Clay, Kentucky. 

1 t 

I J. W. Taylor, New-York. 

I P. B. Barbour, Virginia. 

i HeAry Clay, Kentucky. 

I J. W. Taylor, New-York 

I A. Stevenson, Virginia. 

I John Bell, Tennessee. 

I James K. Tolk, Tennessee. 

I R. M. T. Hunter, Virginia. 

I John White, Tennessee. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 



311 



SS£vLMfl \^. Jones, Virginia. 

M e arci'3, 8 18 5 47 U W.Dwta, Wtao. 

Dec. 6, 1847 1 R 0> Wintl Mass , 

March 3, 1849 $ r ' 

Marclfs, 1 ^! ( H ™ e11 Cobb > Ge ° r ^ 

Marches U^ Boyd, Kentucky. 

Dec. 1, 1853 ( „ « « 

March 3. 1855 $ 

5*' ? 8 o ^oSr * Nathaniel P. Banks, Mass. 

March 3, 1857 $ 

POSTMASTER GENERALS. 



Appointed — 

Sept. 26, 1789, S. Osgood, Massachusetts. 
Aug. 12, 1791, T. Pickering, Massachusetts. 
Feb. 25, 1795, J. Habersham, Georgia. 
Nov. 28, 1801, G. Granger, Connecticut. 
March 17, 1814, R. J. Meigs, Ohio. 
June 25, 1823, John McLean, Ohio. 
March 9, 1829. W. T. Barry, Kentucky. 
May 1, 1835, A. Kendall, Kentucky. 
May 18, 1840, J. M. Niles, Connecticut. 
March 6, 1841, F. Granger, New York. 
Sept. 13, 1841, 0. A. Wickliffe, Kentucky. 
March 5, 1845, C. Johnson, Tennessee. 
March 7, 1849, J. Collamer, Vermont. 
July 20, 1850, N. K. Hall, New York. 
Aug. 31, 1852, S. D. Hubbard, Connecticut. 
March 5, 1853, J. Campbell, Pennsylvania. 
Sectionalism does not seem to have had much to do with this 
Department, or with that of the Interior, created in 1848-'49. 



312 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

SECRETARIES OF THE INTERIOR. 

Appointed — 

March 7, 1849, T. Ewing, Ohio. 

July 20, 1850, J. A. Pearce, Maryland. 

Aug. 15, 1850, T. M. T. McKennon, Pennsylvania. 

Sept. 12, 1850, A. H. H. Stuart, Virginia. 

March 5, 1853, R. McClelland, Michigan. 

ATTORNEY GENERALS. 
Appointed — 

Sept. 26, 1789, E. Randolph, Virginia. 
June 27, 1794, W. Bradford. Pennsylvania. 
Dec. 10, 1795, C. Lee, Virginia. 
Feb. 20, 1801, T. Parsons, Massachusetts. 
March 5, 1800, L. Lincoln, Massachusetts. 
March 2, 1805, R. Smith, Maryland. 
Dec. 23, 1805, J. Breckinridge, Kentucky. 
Jan. 20, 1807, C. A. Rodney, Pennsylvania. 
Dec. 11, 1811, TV. Pinkney, Maryland. 
Feb. 10, 1814, R. Rush, Pennsylvania. 
Nov. 13, 1817, W. Wirt, Virginia. 
March 9, 1829, J. McPherson Berrien, Georgia. 
July 20, 1831, Roger B. Taney, Maryland. 
Nov. 15, 1833, B. F. Butler, New York. 
July 7, 1838, F. Grundy, Tennessee. 
Jan. 10, 1840, H. D. Gilpin, Pennsylvania. 
March 5, 1841, J. J. Crittenden, Kentucky. 
Sept. 13,1811, H. S. Legare, South Carolina. 
July 1, 1843, John Nelson, Maryland. 
March 5, 1845, J. Y. Mason, Virginia. 
Oct. 17, 1846, N. Clifford, Maine. 
June 21, 1848, Isaac Toucey, Connecticut. 
March 7, 1849, R. Johnson, Maryland. 
July 20, 1850, J. J. Crittenden, Kentucky. 
March 5, 1853, C. dishing, Massachusetts. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 313 

SECRETARIES OF THE TREASURY. 

The post of Secretary of the Treasury, although one of great 
importance, requires financial abilities of a high order which are 
more frequently found in the North than in the South, and affords 
little opportunity for influencing general politics, or the questions 
springing out of Slavery. We need not therefore be surprised 
to learn that Northern men have been allowed to discharge its 
di*t'es some forty-eight years out of sixty-seven, as follows: 

1 .ppointed — 

Sept. 11, 1789, A. Hamilton, New York. 
Feb. 3, 1795, 0. Wolcott, Connecticut. 
Dec. 31, 1800, S. Dexter, Massachusetts. 
May 14, 1801, A. Gallatin, Pennsylvania. 
Feb. 9. 1814. G. W. Campbell, Tennessee. 
Oct. 6, 1814, A. J. Dallas, Pennsylvania. 
Oct. 22, 1816, W. H. Crawford, Georgia. 
March 7, 1825, E. Rush, Pennsylvania. 
March 6, 1829, S. D. Ingham, Pennsylvania. 
Aug. 8, 1831, L. McLane, Delaware. 
May 29, 1833, W. J. Duane, Pennsylvania. 
Sept. 23, 1833, Roger B. Taney, Maryland. 
June 27, 1834, L. Woodbury, New Hampshire, 
March 5, 1841, Thomas Ewing, Ohio. 
Sept. 13, 1841, W. Forward, Pennsylvania. 
March 3, 1843, J. C. Spencer, New York. 
June 15, 1844, G. M. Bibb, Kentucky. 
March 5, 1845, R. J. Walker, Mississippi. 
March 7, 1849, W. M. Meredith, Pennsylvania. 
June 20, 1850, Thomas Corwin, Ohio. 
March 5, 1843, James Guthrie, Kentucky. 

SECRETARIES OF WAR AND THE NAVY. 

The Slaveholders, since March 8th, 1841, a period of nearly 
sixteen years, have taken almost exclusive supervision of the 
Navy, Northern men having occupied the Secretaryship only two 

14 



314 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

years. Nor lias any Northern man been Secretary of War since 
1849. Considering that nearly all the shipping belongs to the 
free States, which also supply the seamen, it does seem remarka- 
ble that Slaveholders should have monopolized for the last six- 
teen years the control of the Navy. 

SECRETARIES OF WAR. 

Appointed- 
Sept. 12. 17S9. Henry Knox. Massachusetts. 
Jan. 2, 1795, T. Pickering, Massachusetts. 
Jan. 27, 179G, J. McHenry, Maryland. 
May 7, 1800, J. Marshall, Virginia. 
May 13. 1800, S. Dexter, Massachusetts. 
Feb. 3, 1801, R. Griswold, Connecticut. 
March 5, 1801, II. Dearborn, Massachusetts. 
March 7. 1802. W. Eustis, Massachusetts. 
Jan. 13, 1813, J. Armstrong, New York. 
Sept. 27. 1814, James Monroe, Virginia. 
March 3, 1815, W. II. Crawford, Georgia. 
April 7, 1817, G. Graham. Virginia. 
March 5, 1817, J. Shelby, Kentucky. 
Oct. 8, 1817, J. C. Calhoun, South Carolina. 
March 7, 1825, J. Barbour, Virginia. 
May 26, 1828, P. B. Porter, Pennsylvania. 
March 9, 1829, J. II. Eaton, Tennessee. 
Aug. 1. 1831. Lewis Cass, Ohio. 
March 3, 1837 j B. E. Butler, New York. 
March 1, 1837, J. R. Poinsett, South Carolina. 
March 5, 1841, James Bell. Tennessee. 
Sept, 13, 1811, John McLean, Ohio. 

Oct. 12, 1841, J. C. Spencer, New York. 
March 8, 1843, J. W. Porter, Pennsylvania. 
Feb. 15. 1844, W. Wilkins, Pennsylvania. 

March 5, 1845, William L. Marcy, Neiv York. 

March 7, 1849, G. W. Crawford, Georgia. 

July 20, 1850, E. Bates. Missouri. 

Aug. 15, 1850, C. M. Conrad, Louisiana. 

March 5, 1853, J. C. Dobbin, North Carolina. 



FREE FIGURES AXD SLAVE. 315 

SECRETARIES OF THE NAVY. 

Appointed- 
May 3, 1798, G. Cabot. Massachusetts. 
May 21, 1798, B. Stoddart, Massachusetts. 
July 15, 1801J R. Smith, Maryland. 
May 3, 1805, J. Crowninshield, Massachusetts. 
March 7, 1809, P. Hamilton, South Carolina. 
Jan. 12, 1813, TV. Jones, Pennsylvania. 
Dec. 17, 1814, B. TV. Crowninshield, Massachusetts. 
Nov. 9, 1818, Smith Thompson, New York. 
Sept. 1, 1823, John Rogers, Massachusetts. 
Sept. 16, 1823, S. L. Southard, New Jersey. 
March 9, 1819, John Branch, North Carolina. 
May 23, 1831, L. Woodbmy, New Hampshire. 
June 30, 1834, M. Dickerson, New Jersey. 
June 20, 1838, J. K. Paulding, New York. 
March 5, 1841, G. F. Badger, North Carolina. 
Sept. 13, 1841, A. P. Upshur, Virginia. 
July 24, 1843, D. Henshaw, Massachusetts. 
Feb. 12, 1844, T. TV. Gilmer, Virginia. 
March 14. 1844, James Y. Mason, Virginia. 
March 10, 1845, G. Bancroft, Massachusetts. 
Sept. 9, 1840, James Y. Mason, Virginia. 
March 7, 1849, W. B. Preston, Virginia. 
July 20, 1850, W. A. Graham, N. Carolina. 
July 22, 1852, J. P. Kennedy, Maryland. 
March 3, 1853, J. C. Dobbin, N. Carolina. 

RECAPITULATION. 

Presidency. — Southern men and Slaveholders, 48 vears 3 
months ; Northern men, 23 years 9 months. 

Pro. Tern. Presidency of the Senate. — Since 1809, held by 
Southern men and Slaveholders, except for three or four sessions 
by Northern men. 

Speakership of the House. — Filled by Southern men and Slave- 
holders forty-three years, Northern men, twenty-five. 



3X6 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

Supreme Court.-A majority of the Judges, including Chief 
Justice, Southern men and Slaveholders. 

Secretaryship of State.-m\ed by Southern men and Slave- 
holders forty years, Northern, twenty-seven. * 

Attorney Generalship.-Y\\\e& by Southern men and Slave-/, 
holders forty-two years, Northern men, twenty-five. 

War and IVa^.-Secretaryship of the Navy, Southern men and 
Slaveholders, the last sixteen years, with an interval of two 
years. 

William Henry Hurlbut, of South Carolina, a gentle- 
man of enviable literary attainments, and one from whom 
we may expect a continuation of good service in the emi- 
nently holy crusade now going on against slavery and 
the devil, furnished not long since, to the Edinburgh Re- 
view, in the course of a long and highly interesting article, 
the following summary of oligarchal usurpations-show- 
ing that slaveholders have occupied the principal posts 
of the Government nearly two-thirds of the time :— 

„ ., . ... 11 out of 16 

Presidents - f „„ 

Judges of the Supreme Court - - 17 out ot -a 

n 1 14 OUt Of la 

Attorneys-General - - x 

Presidents of the Senate - - - 61 out oi // 

Speakers of the House - - - * ou °' ^ 

Foreign Ministers ------ 80 out of 134 

As a matter of general interest, and as showing that, 
while there have been but 11 non-slaveholders directly be- 
fore the people as candidates for the Presidency, there 
have been at least 16 slaveholders who were willing to 
Berve their country in the capacity of chief magistrate, 
the following table may be here introduced :— 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 317 

RESULT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATE3 
FROM 1196 TO 1856. 

Toar. Name of Candidate. Elect'l vote. 

-i-np S John Adams 71 

' < Thomas Jefferson - C8 



1800$ 



Thomas Jefferson - 73 

\ John Adams - (14 

ioaiS Thomas Jefferson - 102 

utw ) Charles C. Pinckney - - 14 

i «ns S James Madison - 128 

ifeU8 ) Charles C. Pinckney - - 45 

1 o-i V James Madison - 122 

i6i ^ I De Witt Clinton - 89 

-, Q1 P ( James Monroe - 183 

i81b I Rufus King - ... 34 

1 sort 5 J ames Monroe - 218 
" f No opposition but one vote - 

f Andrew Jackson* ... 99 

84 
41 

I Henry Clay - - 37 

l «oq S Andrew Jackson - 178 

i0 - 5 1 John Q. Adams - 83 

f Andrew Jackson - 219 

iqqo; Henry Clay - 49 

'^. John Floyd - - - - 11 

William Wirt ... 7 

Martin Van Buren - 170 

William H. Harrison - - 73 

1836 \ Hugh L. White 26 

Willie P. Mangum - 11 

Daniel Webster 14 

William H. Harrison r - 234 

\ Martin Van Buren 60 

( James K. Polk - 170 



irojJ J°hn Q. Adams 
i8 - 4 1 W. II. Crawford 



V 



1840$ 



1844 



185 



Henry Clay - ... 105 

1848 1 Zachary Taylor - 163 

I Lewis Cass - \.&l 

" Franklin Pierce - 254 

General Winfield Scott - 42 

James Buchanan - 174 

1856 } John C. Fremont - - - 114 

( Millard Fillmore ... 8 

* No choice by the people ; John Q. Adams elected by the House of Represen- 
tatives. 



2 1 



318 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

AID FOR KANSAS. 

As a sort of accompaniment to tables, 50, 51, 52 and 53, 
wo will here introduce a few items which will more fully 
illustrate the liberality of Freedom and the niggardliness 
of Slavery. 

From an editorial article that appeared in the Rich- 
mond (Va.,) Dispatch, in July, 1856, bewailing the close- 
fistedness of slavery, we make the following extract :— 

: ' Gerrit Smith, the Abolitionist, has just pledged himself to 
give $1,500 a month for the next twelve months to aid in estab- 
lishing Freedom in Kansas. He gave, but a short time since, at 
the Kansas relief meeting in Albany, $3,000. Prior to that, he 
had sent about $1,000 to the Boston Emigrant Committee. Out 
of his own funds, he subsequently equipped a Madison county 
company, of one hundred picked men, and paid their expenses 
to Kansas. At Syracuse he subscribed $10,000 for Abolition 
purposes, so that his entire contributions amount to at least 
$40,000." 

An Eastern paper says : — 

" The sum of $500 was contributed at a meeting at New Bed- 
ford on Monday evening, to make Kansas free. The following 
sums have been contributed for the same purpose: $2,000 in 
Taunton: $600 inRaynham: $800 in Clinton: $300 in Danbury, 
Ct. In Wisconsin, $2,500 at Janesville : $500 at Dalton : $500 
at the Women's Aid Meeting in Chicago : $2,000 in Rockford, 111." 

A telegraphic dispatch, dated Boston, January 2, 1851, 
informs us that — 

" The Secretary of the Kansas Aid Committee acknowledges 
the receipt of $42,678." 

Exclusive of the amounts above, the readers of the New- 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 319 

York Tribune have contributed about $30,000 for the pur- 
pose of securing Kansas to Freedom ; and, with the same 
object in view, other individuals and societies have, from 
time to time, made large contributions, of which we have 
failed to keep a memorandum. The legislature of Ver- 
mont has appropriated $20,000 ; and other free State 
legislatures are prepared to appropriate millions, if neces- 
sary. Free men have determined that Kansas shall be 
free, and free it soon shall be, and ever so remain. Har- 
moniously the work proceeds. 

Now let us see how slavery has rewarded the poor, ig- 
norant, deluded, and degraded mortals — swaggering lick- 
spittles — who have labored so hard to gain for it " a local 
habitation and a name" in the disputed territory. One D. 
B. Atchison, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Bor- 
der Ruffians, shall tell us all about it. Over date of Octo- 
ber 13th, 1856, he says : 

" Up to this moment, from all the States except Missouri, we 
have only received the following sums, and through the following 
persons : — 

A. "W. Jones, Houston, Miss., .... $152 

H. D. Clayton, Eufala, Ala., 500 

Capt. Deedrick, South Carolina, ... 500 

$1,152." 

On this subject, further comment is unnecessary. 

Numerous other contrasts, equally disproportionate, 
might be drawn between the vigor and munificence of 
freedom and the impotence and stinginess of slavery. We 
will, however, in addition to the above, advert to only a 
single instance. During the latter part of the summer of 



320 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

1855, the citizens of the nigger villes of Norfolk and Ports- 
month, in Virginia, were sorely plagued with yellow fever. 
Many of them fell victims to the disease, and most of those 
who survived, and who were not too unwell to travel, left 
their homes, horror-stricken and dejected. To the horror 
of mankind in general, and to the glory of freemen in par- 
ticular, contributions in money, provisions, clothing, and 
other valuable supplies, poured in from all parts of the 
country, for the relief of the sufferers. Portsmouth alone, 
according to the report of her relief association, received 
$42,541 in cash from the free States, and only $12,182 in 
cash from all the slave States, exclusive of Virginia, within 
whose borders the malady prevailed. Including Virginia, 
the sum total of all the slave State contributions amounted 
to only $33,398. Well did the Richmond Examiner remark 
at the time — " we fear that generosity of Virginians is but 
a figure of speech." Slavery ! thy name is shame ! 

In connection with tables 44 and 45 on page 292, it will 
be well to examine the following statistics of Congressional 
representation, which we transcribe from Keynold's Polit- 
ical Map of the United States : — 

UNITED STATES SENATE. 

10 free States, with a white population of 13,238,670, have 32 
Senators. 

15 slave States, with a white population of 6,186,477, have 30 
Senators. 

So that 413,708 free men of the North enjoy but the same pol- 
itical privileges in the TJ. S. Senate as is given to 20G.215 slave 
propagandists. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 321 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

The free States have a total of 144 members. 

The slave States have a total of 90 members. 

One free State Representative represents 91,935 white men 
and women. 

One slave State Representative represents 68,725 white men 
and women. 

Slave Representation gives to slavery an advantage over free- 
dom of 30 votes in the House of Representatives. 

CUSTOM-HOUSE RECEIPTS. 1854. 

Free States, , $00,010,489 

Slave States, 5,136,909 

Balance in favor of the Free States, $54,873,520 

A contrast quite distinguishable ! 

That the apologists of slavery cannot excuse the shame 
and the shabbiness of themselves and their country, as we 
have frequently heard them attempt to do, by falsely as- 
serting that the North has enjoyed over the South the ad- 
vantages of priority of settlement, will fully appear from 
the following table : — 

free states. 

1614. New- York first settled by the Dutch. 
1620. Massachusetts settled by the Puritans. 

1623. New-Hampshire settled by the Puritans. 

1624. New-Jersey settled by the Dutch. 

1635. Connecticut settled by the Puritans. 

1636. Rhode Island settled by Roger Williams. 
1682. Pennsylvania settled by William Penn. 
1791. Vermont admitted into the Union. 
1802. Ohio admitted into the Union. 

1816. Indiana admitted into the Union. 
14* 



222 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

1818. Illinois admitted into the Union. 

1820. Maine admitted into the Union. 
183G. Michigan admitted into the Union. 
1846. Iowa admitted into the Union. 
1848. Wisconsin admitted into the Union. 
1850. California admitted into the Union. 

SLAVE STATES. 

1007. Virginia first settled by the English. 
1G27. Delaware settled by the Swedes and Fins. 
1G35. Maryland settled by Irish Catholics. 
1650. North Carolina settled by the English. 
1G70. South Carolina settled by the Huguenots. 
1733. Georgia settled by Gen. Oglethorpe. 
1782. Kentucky admitted into the Union. 
1796. Tennessee admitted into the Union. 
1811. Louisiana admitted into the Union. 
1817. Mississippi admitted into the Union. 

1819. Alabama admitted into the Union. 

1821. Missouri admitted into the Union. 
1836. Arkansas admitted into the Union. 

1845. Florida admitted into the Union. 

1846. Texas admitted into the Union. 

In the course of an exceedingly interesting article on 
the early settlements in America, E. K. Browne, formerly 
editor and proprietor of the San Francisco Evening Journal, 
says : — 

" Many people seem to think that the Pilgrim Fathers were 
the first who settled upon our shores, and therefore that they 
ought to be entitled, in a particular manner, to our remembrance 
and esteem. 

This is not the case, and we herewith present to our readers a 
list of settlements made in the present United States, prior to 
that of Plymouth •• 






FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 323 

1564. A Colony of French Protestants under Ribault, settled 
in Florida. 

1505. St. Augustine* founded by Pedro Melendez. 

1584. Sir AValter Raleigh obtains a patent and sends two ves- 
sels to the American coast, which receives the name of Virginia. 

1G07. The first effectual settlement made at Jamestown, Va., 
by the London Company. 

1G14. A fort erected by the Dutch upon the site of New- York. 

1615. Fort Orange built near the site of Albany, N. Y. 

1619. The first General Assembly called in Virginia. 

1620. The Pilgrims land on Plymouth Pvock." 

FREEDOM AND SLAVERY AT THE FAIR. 
WHAT FREEDOM DID. 

At an Agricultural Fair held at Watertown, in the State 
of New-York, on the 2d day of October, 1856, two hundred 
and twenty premiums, ranging from three to fifty dollars 
each, were awarded to successful competitors — the aggre- 
gate amount of said premiums being $2,396, or an average 
of $10.89 each. From the proceedings of the Awarding 
Committee we make the following extracts : — 





Best Horse Colt, 


George Parish, - 


$25.00 




Best Filly, 


J. Staplin, - - - 


20.00 




Best Brood Mare, 


A. Blunt, - - - 


25.00 




Best Bull, 


Wm. Johnson, 


25.00 




Best Heifer, 


A. M. Rogers, - 


20.00 




Best Cow, 


C. Baker, - - - 


25.00 




Best Stall-fed Beef, 


J. W. Taylor, - 


10.00 




Best sample Wheat, 


Wm. Ottley, - - 


5.00 




Best sample Flaxseed, 


H. Weir, - - - 


3.00 




Best sample Timothy Seed 


E. S. Hayward, - 


3.00 


(Highest) 


Best Team of Oxen, 


Hiram Converse, 


50.00 


(Lowest) 


Best sample Sweet Corn, 


L. Marshall, - - 


3.00 



Aggregate amount of twelve premiums, - - - §214.00 
An average of $17.83 each. 

* The oldest town in the United States. 



324 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

WHAT SLAVERY DID. 

At the Rowan County Agricultural Fair, held at Mineral 
Springs, in North Carolina, on the 13th day of November, 
1856, thirty premiums, ranging from twenty-five cents to 
two dollars each, were awarded to successful competitors 
— the aggregate amount of said premiums being $42, or 
an average of $1.40 each. From the proceedings of the 
Awarding Committee we make the following extracts : — 





Best Horse Colt, 


T. A. Burke, - 


- $2.00 




Best Filly, 


James Cowan, - 


- 2.00 




Best Brood Mare, 


M. W.. Goodman, 


- 2.00 




Best Bull. 


J. F. McCorkle, - 


- 2.00 




Best Heifer, 


J. F. McCorkle, 


- 2.00 




Best Cow, 


T. A. Burke, - - 


- 2.00 




Best Stall-fed Beef, 


S. D. Rankin, - 


- 1.00 




Best Sample "Wheat, 


M. W. Goodman. 


- 50 




Best lot Beets, 


J. J. Summercll, 


25 




Best lot Turnips, 


Thomas Barber, - 


25 


(Highest) 


Best pair Match Horses 


, R. W. Griffith, - 


- 2.00 


(Lowest) 


Best lot Cabbage, 


Thomas Hyde, - 


25 



Aggregate amount of twelve premiums, $16.25 

An average of $1.36 each. 

Besides the tw r o hundred and twenty premiums, amount- 
ing in the aggregate to $2,396, freedom granted several 
diplomas and silver medals ; besides the thirty premiums 
amounting in the aggregate to $42, slavery granted none 
— nothing. While examining these figures, it should be 
recollected that agriculture is the peculiar province of the 
slave States. If commerce or manufactures had been the 
subject of the fair, the result might have shown even a 
greater disproportion in favor of freedom, and yet there 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 325 

would have been some excuse for slavery, for it makes do 
pretensions to either the one or the other ; but as agricul- 
ture was the subject, slavery can have no excuse what- 
ever, but must bear all the shame of its niggardly and re- 
volting impotence; this it must do for the reason that 
agriculture is its special and almost only pursuit. 

The Reports of the Comptrollers of the States of New 
York and North Carolina, for the year 1856, are now be- 
fore us. From each report we have gleaned a single item, 
which, when compared, the one with the other, speaks 
volumes in favor of freedom and against slavery. We 
refer to the average value per acre of lards in the two 
States ; let slavocrats read, reflect, and repent. 

In 1856, there were assessed for taxation in the 
State of 

NEW YORK, 

Acres of land .... 30,080,000 

Valued at. . . . $1,112,133,136 

Average value per acre . . $36.97 

In 1856, there were assessed for taxation in the 
State of 

NORTH CAROLINA, 

Acres of land .... 32,450,560 

Valued at . . . . 898,800,636 

Average value per acre . . $3.06 

It is difficult for us to make any remarks on the official 
facts above. Our indignation is struck almost dumb at 
this astounding and revolting display of the awful wreck 
that slavery is leaving behind it in the South. We will, 
however aro into a calculation for the purpose of asccr- 



326 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

taming as nearly as possible, in this one particular, how 
much North Carolina has lost by the retention of slavery. 
As we have already seen, the average value per acre of 
land in the State of New York is $36.97 ; in North Caro- 
lina it is only $3.06 ; why is it so much less, or even any 
less, in the latter than in the former ? The answer is, 
slavery. In soil, in climate, in minerals, in water-power 
for manufactural purposes, and in area of territory, North 
Carolina has the advantage of New York, and, with the 
exception of slavery, no plausible reason can possibly be 
assigned why land should not be at least as valuable in the 
valley of the Yadkin as it is along the banks of the 
Genesee. 

The difference between $36.9t and $3.06 is $33.91, 
which, multiplied by the whole number of acres of land in 
North Carolina, will show, in this one particular, the enor- 
mous loss that Freedom has sustained on account of Slav- 
ery in the Old North State. Thus :— 

32,450,560 acres a $33,91. . . .$1,100,398,489. 

Let it be indelibly impressed on the mind, however, 
that this amount, large as it is, is only a moity of the 
sum that it has cost to maintain slavery in North Carolina. 
From time to time, hundreds upon hundreds of millions of 
dollars have left the State, either in search of profitable, 
permanent investment abroad, or in the shape of profits to 
Northern merchants and manufactures, who have become 
the moneyed aristocracy of the country by supplying to 
the South such articles of necessity, utility, and adorn- 
ment, as would have been produced at home but for the 
pernicious presence of the peculiar institution. 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 327 

A reward of Eleven Hundred Millions of Dollars is of- 
fered for the conversion of the lands of North Carolina 
into free soil. The lands themselves, desolate and impov- 
erished under the fatal foot of slavery, offer the reward. 
How, then, can it he made to appear that the abolition of 
slavery in North Carolina, and, indeed, throughout all the 
Southern States — for slavery is exceedingly inimical to 
them all — is not demanded by every consideration of 
justice, prudence, and good sense? In 1850, the total 
value of all the slaves of the State, at the rate of four hun- 
dred dollars per head, amounted to less than one hundred 
and sixteen millions of dollars. Is the sum of one hun- 
dred and sixteen millions of dollars more desirable than 
the sum of eleven hundred millions of dollars ? When a 
man has land for sale, does he reject thirty-six dollars per 
acre and take three ? Non-slaveholding whites ! look 
well to your interests ! Many of you have lands ; com- 
paratively speaking, you have nothing else. Abolish sla- 
very, and you will enhance the value of every league, 
your own and your neighbors', from three to thirty-six dol- 
lars per acre. Your little tract containing two hundred 
acres, now valued at the pitiful sum of only six hundred 
dollars, will then be worth seven thousand. Your chil- 
dren, now deprived of even the meagre advantages of 
common schools, will then reap the benefits of a collegiate 
education. Your rivers and smaller streams, now wast- 
ing their waters in idleness, will then turn the wheels of 
multitudinous mills. Your bays and harbors, now un- 
known to commerce, will then swarm with ships from 



28 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 






ivery enlightened quarter of the globe. Non-slavehold- 
ng whites ! look well to your interests ! 

Would the slaveholders of North Carolina lose anything 
by the abolition of slavery ? Let us see. According to 
their own estimate, their slaves are worth, in round num- 
bers, say, one hundred and twenty millions of dollars.. 
There are in the State twenty-eight thousand slaveholders, 
owning, it may be safely assumed, an average of at least 
five hundred acres of land each — fourteen millions of acres 
in all. This number of acres, multiplied by thirty-three dol- 
lars and ninety-one cents, the difference in value between 
free soil and slave soil, makes the enormous sum of four 
hundred and seventy-four millions of dollars — showing 
that, by the abolition of slavery, the slaveholders them- 
selves would realize a net profit of not less than three 
hundred and fifty-four millions of dollars ! 

Compensation to slaveholders for the negroes now in their 
possession ! The idea is preposterous. The suggestion is 
criminal. The demand is unjust, wicked, monstrous, damn- 
able. Shall we pat the bloodhounds of slavery for the sake 
of doing them a favor ? Shall we fee the curs of slavery in 
order to make them rich at our expense ? Shall we pay the 
whelps of slavery for the privilege of converting them into 
decent, honest, upright men ? No, never ! The non-slavehol- 
ders expect to gain, and will gain, something by the abolition 
of slavery ; but slaveholders themselves will, by far, be the 
greater gainers ; for, in proportion to population, they own 
much larger and more fertile tracts of land, and will, as a 
matter of course, receive the lion's share of the increase 
in the value of not only real estate, but also of other gen- 



FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 329 

uine property, of which they are likewise the principal 
owners. How ridiculously absurd, therefore, is the objec- 
tion, that, if we liberate the slaves, we ruin the masters ! 
Not long since, a gentleman in Baltimore, a native of Ma- 
ryland, remarked in our presence that he was an aboli- 
tionist because he felt that it was right and proper to be 
one ; " but," inquired he, " are there not, in some of the 
States, many widows and orphans who would be left 
in destitute circumstances, if their negroes were taken 
from them ?" In answer to the question, we replied that 
slavery had already reduced thousands and tens of thou- 
sands of non-slaveholding widows and orphans to the low- 
est depths of poverty and ignorance, and that we did not 
believe one slaveholding widow and three orphans were 
of more, or even of as much consequence as five non- 
slaveholding widows and fifteen orphans. " You are 
right," exclaimed the gentleman, " I had not viewed the 
subject in that light before ; I perceive you go in for the 
greatest good to the greatest number." Emancipate the 
negroes, and the ex-slaveholding widow would still retain 
her lands and tenements, which, in consequence of being 
surroundnd by the magic influences of liberty, would soon 
render her far more wealthy and infinitely more respect- 
able, than she could possibly ever become while trafficing 
in human flesh. 

The fact is, every slave in the South costs the State in 
which he resides at least three times as much as he, in the 
whole course of his life, is worth to his master. Slavery 
benefits no one but its immediate, individual owners, and 
them only in a pecuniary point of view, and at the sacri- 



330 FREE FIGURES AND SLAVE. 

fice of the dearest rights and interests of the whole mass 
of non-slaveholders, white and black. Even the masters 
themselves, as we have already shown, would be far bet- 
ter off without it than with it. To all classes of society 
the institution is a curse ; an especial curse is it to those 
who own it not. Non-slaveholding whites ! look well to 
your interests I 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 331 



CHAPTER IX. 

COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

Our theme is a city — a great Southern importing, ex- 
porting, and manufacturing city, to be located at some 
'point or part on the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia or Vir- 
iginia, where we can carry on active commerce, buy, sell, 
; fabricate, receive the profits which accrue from the ex- 
change of our own commodities, open facilities for direct 
communication with foreign countries, and establish all 
those collateral sources of wealth, utility, and adornment, 
which are the usual concomitants of a metropolis, and 
which add so very materially to the interest and import- 
ance of a nation. Without a city of this kind, the South 
can never develop her commercial resources nor attain to 
that eminent position to which those vast resources would 
otherwise exalt her. According to calculations based upon 
reasonable estimates, it is owing to the lack of a great 
commercial city in the South, that we are now annually 
drained of more than One Hundred and Twenty Millions 
of Dollars ! We should, however, take into consideration 
the negative loss as well as the positive. Especially 
should we think of the influx of emigrants, of the visits of 
strangers and cosmopolites, of the patronage to hotels and 



' 



332 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

public halls, of the profits of travel and transportation, of 
the emoluments of foreign and domestic trade, and of nu- 
merous other advantages which have their origin exclu- 
sively in wealthy, enterprising, and densely populate 
cities. 

Nothing is more evident than the fact, that our people 
have never entertained a proper opinion of the importance 
of home cities. Blindly, and greatly to our own injury, 
we have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars towards 
the erection of mammoth cities at the North, while our 
own magnificent bays and harbors have been most shame- 
fully disregarded and neglected. Now, instead of carry- 
ing all our money to New-York, Philadelphia, Boston, and' 
Cincinnati, suppose we had kept it on the south side of 
Mason and Dixon's line — as we would have done, had it 
not been for slavery — and had disbursed it in the upbuild- 
ing of Norfolk, Beaufort, Charleston, or Savannah, how 
much richer, better, greater, would the South have been 
to-day ! How much larger and more intelligent would 
have been our population. How many hundred thousand 
natives of the South would now be thriving at home, in- 
stead of adding to the wealth and political power of other 
parts of the Union. How much greater would be the num- 
ber and length of our railroads, canals, turnpikes, and tel- 
egraphs. How much greater would be the extent and 
diversity of our manufactures. How much greater would 
be the grandeur, and how much larger would be the num- 
ber of our churches, theatres, schools, colleges, lyceums, 
banks, hotels, stores, and private dwellings. How many 
more clippers and steamships would we have sailing on 



COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 333 

the ocean, how vastly more reputable would we be abroad, 
how infinitely more respectable, progressive, and happy, 

[ would we be at home. 

That we may learn something of the importance of 
cities in general, let us look for a moment at the great 
capitals of the world. What would England be without 

1 London ? What would France be without Paris ? What 
would Turkey be without Constantinople ? Or, to come 

'■ nearer home, what would Maryland be without Baltimore ? 

i| What would Louisiana be without New Orleans ? What 
would South Carolina be without Charleston ? Do we ever 
' think of these countries or States without thinking of their 
I cities also ? If we want to learn the news of the country, 
do we not go to the city, or to the city papers ? Every 
metropolis may be regarded as the nucleus or epitome of 
the country in which it is situated ; and the more promi- 
nent features and characteristics of a country, particularly 
of the people of a country, are almost always to be seen 
within the limits of its capital city. Almost invariably 
do we find the bulk of the floating funds, the best talent, 
and the most vigorous energies of a nation concentrated 
in its chief cities ; and does not this concentration of 
wealth, energy, and talent, conduce, in an extraordinary 
degree, to the growth and prosperity of the nation ? Un- 
questionably. Wealth develops wealth, energy develops 
energy, talent develops talent. What, then, must be the 
condition of those countries which do not possess the 
means or facilities of centralizing their material forces, 
their energies, and their talents ? Are they not destined 



334 COMMERCIAL CITIES —SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

to occupy an inferior rank among the nations of the 
earth ? Let the South answer. 

And now let us ask, and we would put the question 
particularly to Southern merchants, what do we so much 
need as a great Southern metropolis ? Merchants of the' 
South, slaveholders ! you are the avaricious assassinators 
of your country ! You are the channels through which 
more than one hundred and twenty millions of dollars — 
$120,000,000 — are annually drained from the South and 
conveyed to the North. You are daily engaged in the 
unmanly and unpatriotic work of impoverishing the land 
of your birth. You are constantly enfeebling our resources^ 
and rendering us more and more tributary to distant parts 
of the nation. Your conduct is reprehensible, base, crim- 
inal. 

Whether Southern merchants ever think of the nume- 
rous ways in which they contribute to the aggrandize- 
ment of the North, while, at the same time, they enervate] 
and dishonor the South, lias, for many years, with us, been 
a matter of more than ordinary conjecture. If, as it would 
seem, they have never yet thought of the subject, it is 
certainly desirable that they should exercise their minds 
upon it at once. Let them scrutinize the workings ofl 
Southern money after it passes north of Mason and Dix- 
on's lino. Let them. consider how much they pay to North- 
ern railroads and hotels, how much to Northern mer- 
chants and shop-keepers, how much to Northern shippers 
and insurers, how much to Northern theatres, newspapers, 
and periodicals. Let them also consider what disposition 
is "made of it after it is lodged in the hands of the North. 



COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 335 

Is not the greater part of it paid out to Northern manu- 
facturers, mechanics, and laborers, for the very articles 
which are purchased at the North — and to the extent that 
this is done, are not Northern manufacturers, mechanics, 
and laborers directly countenanced and encouraged, while, 
at the same time, Southern manufacturers, mechanics, 
and laborers, are indirectly abased, depressed, and dis- 
abled ? It is, however, a matter of impossibility, on 
these small pages, to notice or enumerate all the me- 
thods in which the money we deposit in the North 
is made to operate against us ; suffice it to say that 
■ it is circulated and expended there, among all classes of 
;the people, to the injury and impoverishment of almost 
; every individual in the South. And yet, our cousins of 
lithe North are not, by any means, blameworthy for availing 
ji themselves of the advantages which we have voluntarily 
[yielded to them. They have shown their wisdom in grow- 
, ing great at our expense, and we have shown our folly in 
; allowing them to do so. Southern merchants, slaveholders, 
| and slave-breeders, should be the objects of our censure ; 
Ithey have desolated and impoverished the South ; they 
| are now making merchandize of the vitals of their coun- 
; try ; patriotism is a word nowhere recorded in their vo- 
cabulary ; town, city, country — they care for neither ; 
I with them, self is always paramount to every other con- 
| sideration. 

Having already compared slavery with freedom in the 
j States, we will now compare it with freedom in the cities. 
From every person as yet unconvinced of the despicable- 



336 COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

ness of slavery, we respectfully ask attention to the fol- 
lowing letters, which fully explain themselves : — 

Finance Department Comptroller's Office, 
New-York, February 17th, 1857. 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

Dear Sir: — 
Your letter to Mayor Wood has been handed to me for an 
answer, which I take pleasure in giving as follows : 

The last assessment of property in this city was made in 
August, 1856. 

The ralue of all the real and personal property in the city, ac- 
cording to that assessment, is $511,740,492. 

A census of the city was taken in 1855, and the number of in-- 
habitants at that time can be obtained only from the Secretary 
of Sta'e. Very truly yours, 

A. S. Cady. 



State of New-York, Secretary's Office, 
Albany, February 24, 1857. 
H. E. Helper, Esq., 

Dear Sir : — 
Yours of the 17th February, in regard to the population of the 
city of New York, is before me. According to the census of 

1855 the population was 629.810 

1850 « " " 515.547 

1845 " " " 371,223 

1840 " " " 312,710 

1835 " " « 268,089 

1830 " " " 197,112 

As to the population now, you have the same facilities of judg- 
ing that we have from the above table. 
Very truly yours, 

A. N. Wakefield, Chief Clerk. 



commercial cities — southern commerce. 337 

Mayor's Office, City Hall, ^ 

Baltimore, December 26, 185G. $ 
II. R. Helper, Esq., 

Dear Sir : — 
His Honor the Mayor of this City has requested me to reply 
to your communication of the 24th inst., addressed to him, re- 
questing answers to certain questions. 

In answer to your first interrogatory, I would state that the 
amount of direct taxation assessed January 1st, 1856, was 
$102,053,839 ; the amount of exempt taxation (i. e. property out 
of the limits of direct tax) assessed at that date was §6,054,733. 
In reply to your second inquiry, I would state that no census 
of the city has been taken since 1850. The estimated population 
at this time is about 250,000. Respectfully Yours, &c, &c, 

D. H. Blanciiard, Secretary. 



Office of the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, 

December 30, 1856. 

H. R. Helper, Esq., 

Dear S>'r : 

In reply to your note of the 25th inst., received to-day, I has- 
ten to give you the estimates you ask. 

Real Estate, 150 millions ; it is about one-half the real value. 
Its market price is at least 300 million dollars. 

The Personal Estate is returned at 20 millions ; it is over 110 
millions. There has been no census since 1850. The population 
now is 500,000. Yours truly, 

G. Yaux. 



State of Louisiana, Mayoralty of New Orleans, > 
City Hall, 3d day of Jan'y, 1857. $ 

Mr. II. R. Helper. 

New-York : 

Dear Sir : — 
In answer to your note of the 24th December, I beg to refer 
you to the enclosed abstract for the value of real estate and 
skives according to the last assessment. 

15 



338 COMMERCIAL CITIES— SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

There has heretofore been no assessment of personal property 
— there having been no tax authorized until this year. The as- 
sessment is now being made and will probably add about $5,000,- 
000 to the assessment as stated in the abstract. 

There has been no census since the U. S. census of 1850, ex- 
cept an informal census, made in 1852. for the purpose of dividing 
the city into wards anew. 

The estimated population now is about 150 to 175,000 inhabi- 
tants — permanent population — including the floating population 
at this season, it would probably reach not less than 210.000 in- 
habitants. The U. S. census was taken in the summer months, 
and is very incorrect as to the absolute population of New Or- 
leans. Very respectfully, 

Your obed't serv't, 

J. B. Walton, 

Secretary. 

By reference to the abstract of which Mr. Walton speaks, 
we find that the value of real and personal property is 
summed up as follows : — 

Real Estate, - - - $67,460,115 

Slaves, ... - 5,183,580 

Capital, - 18,544,300 

Total, - - - $91,188,195 






City Hall, Boston, ) 
Dec. 31. 1856. $ 

Dear Sir: — Yours of the 25th inst., addressed to the Mayor, 
has been handed to me for a reply — and I would accordingly 
state that the value of real and personal estate in this city, on 
the first day of May. A.D. 1856, was $249,162,500. 

The census of the city of Boston, on the first day of May, A.D. 
1855, was 162,748 persons. 



COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 339 

The estimated population of the cit}' of Boston at this date — 
say January 1st, 1857 — is 105,000. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

Saml. T. McCleary, 

City Clerk. 



St. Louis, > 
Feb. 27, 1857. \ 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

New- York : 

Bear Sir : — 
In reply to yours of the 9th inst., I beg leave to state, that a 
census of our population was taken in the spring of 1856 by the 
Sheriff, and although it was inaccurate, yet the population as re- 
turned by him was then 125,500. That his census is too low 
there is no doubt. Our population at this time is at least 
140,000. 

Our last assessment was made in February, 1856. Value of 
real and personal estate, is, in round numbers, §63.000,000. 

Trusting this information will be sufficient for your purpose, 
I remain, Yours, &c, 

John How, 

Mayor. 



Mayor's Office, City Hall, Brooklyn, ) 
January 24th, 1857. $ 

H. R. Helper, Esq., 

Sir:— 
The answers to your inquiries are as follows : 
The last assessment of property in this city was made in 
August, 1856. 

The value of all the real and personal property in the city, ac- 
cording to that assessment, is §95,800.440. 

A census of the city was taken in 1855, and the number of in- 
habitants, according to it, was 205,250. 
The estimated population now is 225.000. 
The last annual report of the Comptroller, together with a 



340 COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

communication of the Mayor to the Common Council, made on 
the 5th of Jan., 1857, have been transmitted by mail to your ad- 
dress, and from them you may be able to obtain any further 
information you may desire. Yours, respectfully, 

S. S. Powell, 

Mayor. 
By C. S. Brainerd. 



Mayor's Office, > 
Charleston, Feb. 16, 1857. $ 

II. K. Helper, Esq., 

(New York,) 

Dear Sir: — 
Yours of the 9th has just been received, I sent you, through 
the Clerk of Council, some time ago, the Annual Fiscal State- 
ment of the Committee on Accounts made to the City Council, 
which would give some of the information which you desire. I 
will have another copy sent you. 

No census has been taken since 1848. The population at pre- 
sent must be between fifty aDd sixty thousand. 

Any information which it may be in my power to furnish you 
with, will always give me pleasure to supply. 

Very respectfully, 

Wm. Porcher Miles, 

Mayor. 

From a report of the " Annual accounts of the city of 
Charleston, for the fiscal year ending the 31st of August, 
1856," it appears that the total value of real and personal 
property, including slaves— nearly half the population- 
was $36,127,751. 



Mayor's Office, 
Cincinnati, Jan'y 2, 1857 
Dear Sir. .'—In reply to your note of the 25th ult., I beg leave 
to say that the value of all the real and personal property " 



7 1)1 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 341 

this city, as assessed for taxation, amounts to $88,810,734. The 
realty being $60,701 ,2G7 ; the personalty $20,795,203, and the 
bank and brokers' capital $7,314,204. The assessment of the 
realty was made in 1853 ; that of the personalty is made in 
March of each year. 

Our present population is estimated at 210,000. No complete 
census has been taken since 1850. 

The total of taxes levied on the above assessment of $88,810,- 
734, for city purposes, was $529,727,05. 

Very respectfully, 

Your ob'dt. serv't, 
II. R. Helper, Esq., Jas. J. Faran, 

New-York. Mayor. 



Mayor's Office, 
Louisville, Ky., January 1st, 1857. 
II. R. Helper, Esq., 

New-York City, 

Dear Sir : — 
Your favor 24th ult. is received — contents noted. I will re- 
mark in reply, that the taxes of this city are levied only on real 
estate, slavery, and merchandise, (exclusive of home manufac- 
tures,) which are taken at what is supposed to be their cash 
value, but is much less than the real value. Our last assessment 
was made the 10th January, 1856, and amounted to $31,500,000. 
There has been no census of this city taken since 1850, our 
charter requiring that it shall be taken this year. I am now pre- 
paring to have it done. It is supposed Louisville at this time 
has a population of 65 or 70 thousand. 

I send with this my last annual message to the Gen. Council, 
and accompanying documents. 

Respectfully yours, 

John Barbee, Mayor. 



342 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

Daily Tribune Office, 

Chicago, May 21, 1857. 
IT. R. Helper, Esq. 

Sir : — 
In the May No. of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine you will find 
some of your questions answered. The actual cash value of pro- 
perty is not taken by the assessors. Citizens are not sworn as 
to the value of their personal effects, nor is real estate given in 
at twenty per cent, of its selling cash price. An elaborate esti- 
mate of the real value, in cash, of Chicago, which we have seen, 
puts the real estate at - - - - $125,000,000 
Improvements on the same, - $24,000,000 

Personal property, $22,000,000 



In 1857 total value, - $171,000,000 

On half a dozen streets in this city lots sell readily at $1,000 to 
$1,200 per foot front, exclusive of improvements. 

A census of the population of Chicago was taken in October, 
1853, and in June, 1855, the latter by State authority. That of 
October '53 found 60,652 ; that of June '55 found 80,509. The 
best estimate at present makes the number, on May 1st, 1857. to 
be 112,000, which is rather under than over the truth. The 
amount of building, in the city, is immense, but as quickly as a 
tenement can be spiked together, it is taken at a high rent ; and 
at no former period has there seemed so rapid an augmentation 
of population. Very truly yours, 

Ray & Medill, 

Eds. Ch. Trib. 



Richmond, Va. > 

April 25th, '57. $ 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

Dear Sir : — 
Yours of the 14th inst. has been received, and should have been 
answered sooner, but it was impossible to get the information 
you desired earlier. The value of the real estate in the city of 
Richmond is $18,000,000. The value of the personal is $191,920. 
Total value $18,201,920. This does not include slaves, of whom 
there are 6,472 in the city. The State values each slave at $300 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 343 

each— making $1,941,600. which, added to the total above, makes 
$20,143,520. The number of inhabitants — whites and blacks, is 
34,612 within the corporation limits. The assessment was made 
in 1855 throughout the whole State. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

B. W. Starke. 



Mayor's Office, ) 

Providence, Dec. 31st, 1856. $ 
II. R. Helper, Esq., 

New York, 

Dear Sir : — 
Yours of 25th is this moment received. You will receive with 
this a communication from the Chairman of the Board of Assess- 
ors, giving the requisite information from that department. I 
send you this day a census report, taken 1855, which will give 
you the information asked. Our population at this time is be- 
tween 50 and 60,000. Respectfully, 

James Y. Smith, 
. Mayor. 



Assessor's Office, \ 
Providence, Dec. 31st, 1856. $ 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

Dear Sir : — 
His Honor., the Mayor of this City, has requested me to answer 
your communication of the 25th inst., addressed to him, so far as 
relates to the valuation of this city, &c, which is herewith pre- 
sented. 
The valuation of this City in 1856 is as follows : 

Real Estate, $36,487,116 

Personal Estate, - 21,577,400 

Total, $58,064,516 

Our last assessment was ordered in June last, and completed 
on the 1st day of September last. 



344 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

Rates of taxation $7 75 per $1000. 
Amount of tax raised $450,000. 

Respectfully yours, 

Joseph Martin, 
Chairman of the Board of Assessors. 



Herald Office, } 

Norfolk. Va., 28th April, 1857. $ 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

New-York, 

Dear Sir:— 
The value of all the real estate, as re-assessed about two months 
ago, is set down, say, in round numbers, at five and a half mil- 
lions. The actual value would bring it somewhat above that 
mark. The assessment of the personal property will be com- 
pleted in three or four weeks hence ; but its exact value cannot 
be arrived at from the fact that a large portion of this descrip- 
tion of property— including slaves— is taxed specifically without 
regard to its value. It is estimated by the assessors, however, 
that the personal exceeds the real estate, and may be safely set 
down at six and a half millions. 

There has been no census taken since 1850. The State autho- 
rities assume the population to be 16.000, but I am informed by 
the assessors that 17,000 is a fairer estimate. 

Hoping that the information given may answer the purpose 
for which you require it, I am, Respectfully yours, 

R. G. Broughton. 



Mayor's Office, > 
Buffalo, March 10, 1857. $ 
Dear Sir : — Yours, of the 9th inst., was received this morning. 
The answers to your questions are as follows : 

The last valuation of the property of our city was made in April, 
1856. 

Valuation of real estate, . . .$38,114,040 
" personal estate, . . 7,360,436 

Total real and personal, $45,474,476 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 345 

The last census was the State census, taken in the summer of 
1855. That showed a population of 74,214 ; a fair estimate now 
is 90,000. Respectfully, 

Your ob't serv't, 

F. P. Stevens. 



Mayor's Office, 
Savannah, 9th January, 1850. 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

New-York, 

Dear Sir : — 
In reply to your first interrogatory, I send you the last Mayor's 
report, in which you will find the information you seek. 
No census has been taken of the city since 1850. 
The estimated population is 25,000. 

Very respectfully yours, 

J. P. Screven, 

Maxjor. 

From the Mayor's annual report, we learn that the " as- 
sessments or value of lands and improvements," for the 
year ending October 31st, 1856, amounted to $8,999,015. 
The value of the personal property is, perhaps, about 
$3,000,000 — total value of real and personal estate 
$11,999,015. 



City of New-Bedford, 
Mayor's Room, 1 mo., 6th, 1857. 
H. R. Helper : — 
Yours of the 4th inst. came to hand this morning. 
In reply to your inquiries, I will say that the amount assessed 
on the 1st day of May, 1856, was as follows : — 

Real Estate, $9,311,500 

Personal, ------ 17,735,500 

Total, ------ $27,047,000 

15* 



346 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

The returns of a census taken the previous autumn gave 20,391 
persons, from which there is not probably much change. 

Respectfully, 

Geo. Howland, Jr. 
Mayor. 



Mayor's Office, 
"Wilmington, N. C, May 23d, 1857. 
H. R. Helper, Esq., 

New-York, 

Dear Sir : — 
I am in receipt of yours of 19th inst. The value of real estate 
as per last assessment, 1st April, 1856, was $3,350,000 

We have no system by which to arrive at the value 
of personal property : I estimate the amount, however, 
exclusive of merchandize, at $4,509,000 

There has been no census taken since 1850 — the present num- 
ber of inhabitants is estimated at 10,000. 

I regret my inability to afford you more definite information. 
Very respectfully, &c, 

O. G. Parsley, 

Mayor. 



COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 



317 



From the foregoing communications, we make up the 
following summary of the more important particulars : 



NINE FREE CITIES. 



Name. 


Population. 


Wealth. 


Wealth 
per cajiila. 


New York 


700,000 

500,000 

165,000 

225,000 

210,000 

112,000 

60,000 

90,000 

21,000 


$511,740,492 

325,000,000 
249,162,500 
95,800,440 
88,810,734 
171,000,000 
58,064,516 
45,474,476 
27,047,000 


$731 

650 

1,510 

425 

422 

1 527 


Chicago 


Buffalo 


967 

505 

1,288 




2,083,000 


$1,572,100,158 


$754 



NINE SLAVE CITIES. 



Name. 


Population. 


Wealth. 


Wealth 
per capita. 


St. Louis 


250,000 
175,000 
140,000 
60,000 
70,000 
40,000 
17,000 
25,000 
10,000 


$102,053,839 
91,188^195 
63,000,000 
36,127,751 
31,500.000 
20,143,520 
12,000,000 
11,999,015 
7,850,000 

$375,862,320 


$408 
521 
450 




602 
450 
503 
705 

480 

785 




787,000 


$177 



Let it not be forgotten that the slaves themselves are 
valued at so much per head, and counted as part of the 
wealth of slave cities ; and yet, though we assent, as we 
have done, to the inclusion of all this fictitious wealth, it 
will be observed that the residents of free cities are far 
wealthier, per capita, than the residents of slave cities. 
We trust the reader will not fail to examine the figures 
with great care. 



348 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

In this age of the world, commerce is an indispensable 
element of national greatness. Without commerce we 
can have no great cities, and without great cities we can 
have no reliable tenure of distinct nationality. Commerce 
is the forerunner of wealth and population ; and it is 
mainly these that make invincible the power of undying 
States. 

Speaking in general terms of the commerce of this coun- 
try, and of the great cities through which that commerce 
is chiefly carried on, the Boston Traveler says : — 

" The wealth concentrated at the great commercial points of 
the United States is truly astonishing. For instance, one-eighth 
part of the entire property of this country is owned by the cities 
of New-York and Boston. Boston alone, in its corporate limits, 
owns one-twentieth of the property of this entire Union, being 
an amount equal to the wealth of any three of the New-England 
States, except Massachusetts. In this city is found the richest 
community, per capita, of any in the United States. The nest 
city in point of wealth, according to its population, is Providence, 
(R. I.,) which city is one of the richest in the Union, having a 
valuation of fifty-six millions, with a population of fifty thousand." 

The same paper, in the course of an editorial article on- 
the " Wealth of Boston and its Business," says : — 

" The assessors' return of the wealth of Boston will probably 
show this year an aggregate property of nearly three hundred 
millions. This sum, divided among 160,000 people, would give 
nearly $2,000 to each inhabitant, and will show Boston to be 
much the wealthiest community in the United States, save New 
York alone, with four times its population. The value of the 
real estate in this city is increasing now with great rapidity, as 
at least four millions of dollars' worth of new houses and stores 
will be built this year. The personal estate in ships, cargoes, 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 349 

stocks, &0.j is greatly increasing with each succeeding year, not- 
withstanding the many disasters and losses constantly occurring 
in such kinds of property. 

" It is impossible to get the exact earnings of the nearly six 
hundred thousand tons of shipping owned in this city. But per- 
haps it would not be much out of the way to set the total amount 
for 1855 at from fifteen to twenty millions of dollars. This sum 
has probably been earned by our fleet engaged in the domestic 
trade, and in commercial transactions with the East and West 
Indies, South America, the Pacific. Europe and Africa. The three 
sources from which the population of Boston is maintained, and 
its prosperity continued, are these : Commerce, trade, and manu- 
factures. Its annual trade and sales of merchandise are said now, 
by competent judges, to amount to three hundred millions of 
goods per annum, and will soon greatly exceed that vast sum. 
The annual manufactures of this city are much more in amount 
than in many entire States in this Union. They amount, accord- 
ing to recent statistics, to nearly seventy-five millions of dollars." 

Freeman Hunt, the accomplished editor of Hunt's Mer- 
chants' Magazine, writing on the " Progressive Growth of 
Cities," says : — 

: ' London is now the greatest concentration of human power 
the world has ever known. Will its supremacy be permanent 1 
or will it, like its predecessors, be eclipsed by western rivals? 
New-Yorkers do not doubt, and indeed have no reason to doubt, 
that their city, now numbering little more than one-third of the 
population of London, will, within the next fifty years, be greater 
than the metropolis of the British empire. 

'' New York, with her immediate dependencies, numbers about 
900.000. Since 1790 she has established a law of growth which 
doubles her population once in fifteen years. If this law con- 
tinues to operate, she may be expected to possess 1,800.000 in 
1871, 3,600,000 in 1886. and 7,200.000 in 1901. If twenty years 
be allowed New York as her future period of duplication, she 
would overtake London by the end of fifty vears ; London may 



350 COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

then have five millions ; New-York will almost certainly have 
more than that number. 

Will the star of empire become stationary at New-York 1 
The interior plain of North America has within itself more means 
to sustain a dense population in civilized comfort than any other 
region of the world. The star of empire cannot be arrested in 
its western course before it reaches this plain. Its most promis- 
ing city at present is Chicago. The law of its growth since 1840 
seems to be a duplication within four years. In 1840 it num- 
bered 4,379. In June of this year it will contain 88,000. At 
the same rate of increase carried forward, it would overtake New- 
York within twenty years. If six years be allowed for each 
future duplication, Chicago would overtake New-York in thirty- 
three years. If the growth of Chicago should in future be mea- 
sured by a duplication of every seven years, it would contain 
5.622,000 in forty-two years. 

" In 1901, forty-five years from this time, the central plain, in- 
cluding the Canadas, will contain about eighty millions of peo- 
ple. Its chief city may be reasonably expected to contain about 
one-tenth of this population. Before the end of this century the 
towns and cities of the central plain will contain, with their 
suburbs, not less than half the entire population ; that is to say, 
forty millions. How these millions shall be apportioned among 
the cities of that day, is a subject for curious speculation." 

A FLEET OF MERCHANTMEN. 

The Boston Journal, of a late date, says : — 

" About one hundred sail of vessels, of various descriptions, 
entered this port yesterda) 7 , consisting of traders from Europe, 
South America, the "West Indies, and from coastwise ports. The 
waters of the bay and harbor presented a beautiful appearance 
from the surrounding shores, as this fleet of white-winged mes- 
sengers made their way towards the city, and crowds of people 
must have witnessed their advent with great delight. A more 
magnificent sight is seldom seen in our harbor." 

Would to God that such sights could sometimes be seen 



COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 351 

in Southern harbors ! When slavery shall cease to para- 
lyse the energies of our people, then ships, coming to us 
from the four quarters of the globe, will, with majestic 
grandeur, begin to loom in the distance ; our bays will 
rejoice in the presence of "the white-winged messengers," 
and our levees resound as never before with the varied 
din of commerce. 

COMMERCE OF NORFOLK. 

The Southern Argus thus speaks of the ruined commerce 
of a most despicable niggerville : — ■ 

" We question if any other community, certainly no other in 
the United States of America, have made greater exertions to 
resuscitate the trade of Norfolk than the mercantile portion of 
the inhabitants ; in proef of which nineteen-twentieths of those 
engaged in foreign commerce have terminated in their insolvency, 
the principal cause of which has been in the unrelenting hostility, 
to this day, from the commencement of the present century, of 
the Virginia Legislature, with the co-operation of at least the 
commercial portions of the citizens of Richmond, Petersburg and 
Portsmouth." 

How it is, in this enlightened age, that men of ordinary 
intelligence can be so far led into error as to suppose that 
commerce, or any other noble enterprise, can be established 
and successfully prosecuted under the dominion of slavery, 
is, to us, one of the most inexplicable of mysteries. " Com- 
mercial" Conventions, composed of the self-titled lordlings 
of slavery — Generals, Colonels, Majors, Captains, etcetera 
— may act out their annual programmes of farcical non- 
sense from now until doomsday ; but they will never add 
one iota to the material, moral, or mental interests of the 



352 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

South, — never can, until their ebony idol shall have been 
utterly demolished. 

BALTIMORE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 

We are indebted to the Baltimore Patriot for the follow- 
ing interesting sketch of the Monumental City as it was, 
and as it is, and as it may be : — 

" The population of Baltimore in 1790 was 13.503 ; in 1800, 
15,514; in 1810, 35,583; in 1820, 62,738; in 1830, 80,625; in 
1840, 110,313; in 1850, 169,054. The increase of inhabitants 
within two particular decades, will be found, by reference to the 
above table, to be remarkable. Between 1800 and 1810, the 
population nearly doubled itself; between 1840 and 1850, the 
increase was two-thirds ; and for the past five years, the numer- 
ical extension of our population has been even more rapid than 
during the previous decade. We may safely assume tha-t Balti- 
more contains at the present time not less than 250.000 inhabit- 
ants. But the increase in the manufactured products of the State, 
as shown by the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, is a 
matter of even greater astonishment. The statistical tables of 
1840 estimate the aggregate value of the manufactures of Mary- 
land at $13,509,636 — thirteen million jive hundred and nine thou- 
sand six hundred and thirty-six dollars. In 1850, the value of 
the articles manufactured within the limits of the State amounted 
to $32.593,635— thirty-two million five hundred and ninety-three 
thousand six hundred and thirty-five dollars ! A signal proof 
that the wealth of the State has increased with even far greater 
rapidity than its population. A quarter of a century ago, the 
sum of our manufactures did not much exceed five millions of 
dollars per annum. At this day it may be set down as falling 
but little short of fifty millions. These are facts taken from offi- 
cial sources, and therefore understated rather than exceeded. 
They are easily verified by any one who will take the necessary 
trouble to examine the reports for himself; and they justify us 
in the assertion that we are but fifteen years behind Philadelphia 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

in population, and are on]y at the same relative distance from 
her in point of wealth. 

A change has been going on for some time past in our com- 
mercial and industrial affairs which all may have noticed, but the 
extent of which is known to but few, and we hazard nothing in 
saying that this enormous progression must continue, because it 
is based upon a solid foundation, and therefore subject to no or- 
dinary contingencies. 

Occupying geographically the most central position on this 
Continent, with vast mines of coal lying within easy distance to 
the North and West of us, with a harbor easy of access, and with 
railroads penetrating by the shortest routes the most fertile sec- 
tions of the Union, we need nothing but the judicious fostering 
of a proper spirit among our citizens to make Baltimore not only 
the commercial emporium of the South and West, but also the 
great coal mart of the Union. Our flour market is already the 
most extensive in the known world — we speak without exagger- 
ation, for this also is proven by unquestionable facts. There is 
more guano annually brought into our port than into all the other 
ports of the United States put together, and the demand for this 
important article of commerce is steadily increasing. Our ship- 
ments of tobacco are immense, and as the improvement in the 
depth of the channel of the Patapsco increases, must inevitably 
become much greater. 

Such, then, is our present condition as a commercial commu- 
nity, and when we add that our prosperity is as much owing to 
our admirable geographical position as to the energy of our mer- 
chants and manufacturers, we design to cast no imputation on 
these excellent citizens, but rather to stimulate them to renewed 
efforts in a field where enterprise cannot fail of reaping its due 
reward. 

Take any common map of the United States and rule an air 
line across it from Baltimore to St. Louis, and midway between 
the two it will strike Cincinnati — the great inland centre of 
trade — traversing at the same time those wonderfull}' fertile val- 
lies which lie between the latter point and the Mississippi river. 
Now let it be remembered that since the introduction of rail- 
ways fluvial navigation has been, to a considerable extent, super- 



354 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

seded by inland transport, because of the greater speed and cer- 
tainty of the latter. Let it be remembered also that the migra- 
tion westward is incessantly going on, and that with every farm 
opened within striking distance of a great arterial railway, or its 
anastomosing branches, a certain amount of freight must find its 
way to the seaboard markets, while the demand for manufactured 
products, and for domestic or foreign commodities, in exchange 
for breadstuffs or raw material, must necessarily increase ; 
thereby adding greatly to the prosperity of the commercial cen- 
tre towards which articles of export tend, and from which im- 
ports in return are drawn. It would be difficult to estimate the 
value of what this trade will be fifty 3-ears hence, or what the 
population of Baltimore, situated as she is, will by that time 
have become. 

Reasoning from causes to effects, and presuming that ordinary 
perseverance will be used in promoting the interests of our city, 
industrially and commercially, we are justified in believing that 
its progress must be in an accelerated ratio, and that there are 
those now living who will look back with surprise and wonder 
at its growth and magnitude, as we have done while comparing 
its present aspect with that which it exhibited within our own 
memory." 

It is a remarkable fact, but one not at all surprising to 
those whose philosophy leads them to think aright, that 
Baltimore and St. Louis, the two most prosperous cities in 
the slave States, have fewer slaves in proportion to the 
aggregate population than any other city or cities in the 
South. While the entire population of the former is now 
estimated at 250,000, and that of the latter at 140,000— 
making a grand total of 390,000 in the two cities, less 
than 6,000 of this latter number are slaves ; indeed, neither 
city is cursed with half the number of 6,000. 

In 1850, there were only 2,946 slaves in Baltimore, and 
2,656 in St. Louis — total in the two cities 5,602 ; and in 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 355 

both places, thank Heaven, this heathenish class of the 
population was rapidly decreasing. The census of 18G0 
will, in all probability, show that the two cities are en- 
tirely exempt from slaves and slavery ; and that of 1S70 
will, we prayerfully hope, show that the United States at 
large, at that time, will have been wholly redeemed from 
the unspeakable curse of human bondage. 

What about Southern Commerce ? Is it not almost en- 
tirely tributary to the commerce of the North ? Are we 
not dependent on New-York, Philadelphia, Boston, and 
Cincinnati, for nearly every article of merchandise, whe- 
ther foreign or domestic ? Where are our ships, our mari- 
ners, our naval architects ? Alas ! echo answers, where ? 

Reader ! would you understand how abjectly slave- 
holders themselves are enslaved to the products of North- 
ern industry ? If you would, fix your mind on a Southern 
"gentleman" — a slave-breeder and human-flesh monger, 
who professes to be a Christian ! Observe the routine of 
his daily life. See him rise in the morning from a North- 
ern bed, and clothe himself in Northern apparel ; see him 
walk across the floor on a Northern carpet, and perform 
his ablutions out of a Northern ewer and basin. See him 
uncover a box of Northern powders, and cleanse his teeth 
with a Northern brush ; see him reflecting his physiog- 
nomy in a Northern mirror, and arranging his hair with a 
Northern comb See him dosing himself with the mendi- 
caments of Northern quacks, and perfuming his handker- 
chief with Northern cologne. See him referring to the 
time in a Northern watch, and glancing at the news in a 
Northern gazette. See him and his family sitting in 



356 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

Northern chairs, and singing and praying out of Northern 
books. See him at the breakfast table, saying grace over 
a Northern plate, eating with Northern cutlery, and drink- 
ing from Northern utensils. See him charmed with the 
melody of a Northern piano, or musing over the pages of 
a Northern novel. See him riding to his neighbor's in a 
Northern carriage, or furrowing his lands with a North- 
ern plow. See him lighting his segar with a Northern 
match, and flogging his negroes with a Northern lash. 
See him with Northern pen and ink, writing letters on 
Northern paper, and sending them away in Northern en- 
velopes, sealed with Northern wax, and impressed with a 
Northern stamp. Perhaps our Southern " gentleman" is 
a merchant ; if so, see him at his store, making an unpa- 
triotic use of his time in the miserable traffic of Northern 
gimcracks and haberdashery ; see him when you will, 
where you will, he is ever surrounded with the industrial 
products of those whom, in the criminal inconsistency of 
his heart, he execrates as enemies, yet treats as friends. 
His labors, his talents, his influence, are all for the North, 
and not for the South ; for the stability of slavery, and 
for the sake of his own personal aggrandizement, he is 
willing to sacrifice the dearest interests of his country. 

As we see our ruinous system of commerce exemplified 
in the family of our Southern " gentleman," so we may see 
it exemplified, to a greater or less degree, in almost every 
other family throughout the length and breadth of the 
slaveholding States. We are all constantly buying, 
and selling, and wearing, and using Northern merchan- 
dise, at a double expense to both ourselves and our neigh- 



COMMERCIAL CITIES — SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 351 

bors. If we but look at ourselves attentively, we shall 
find that we are all clothed cap a pie in Northern habila- 
raents. Our hats, our caps, our cravats, our coats, our 
vests, our pants, our gloves, our boots, our shoes, our 
under-garments — all come from the North ; whence, too, 
Southern ladies procure all their bonnets, plumes, and 
flowers ; dresses, shawls, and scarfs ; frills, ribbons, and 
ruffles ; cuffs, capes, and collars. 

True it is that the South has wonderful powers of endu- 
rance and recuperation ; but she cannot forever support the 
reckless prodigality of her sons. We are all spendthrifts ; 
some of us should become financiers. We must learn to 
take care of our money ; we should withhold it from the 
North, and open avenues for its circulation at home. We 
should not run to New-York, to Philadelphia, to Boston, 
to Cincinnati, or to any other Northern city, every time 
we want a shoe-string or a bedstead, a fish-hook or a hand- 
saw, a tooth-pick or a cotton-gin. In ease and luxury we 
have been lolling long enough ; we should now bestir 
ourselves, and keep pace with the progress of the age. 
We must expand our energies, and acquire habits of enter- 
prise and industry ; we should arouse ourselves from the 
couch of lassitude, and inure our minds to thought and 
our bodies to action. We must begin to feed on a more 
substantial diet than that of pro-slavery politics ; we should 
leave off our siestas and post-meridian naps, and employ 
our time in profitable vocations. Before us there is a vast 
work to be accomplished — a work which has been accu- 
mulating on our hands for many years. It is no less a 
work than that of infusing the spirit of liberty into all our 



358 COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 

systems of commerce, agriculture, manufactures, govern- 
ment, literature, and religion. Oligarchial despotism must I 
be overthrown ; slavery must be abolished. 

For the purpose of showing how absolutely Southern 
" gentlemen," particularly slaveholding merchants, are 
lost to all sense of true honor and patriotism, we will 
here introduce an extract from an article which appeared 
more than three years ago in one of the editorial columns 
of the leading daily newspaper of the city of New-York. 
It is in these words : — 

'■' Southern merchants do indeed keep away from New-York 
for the reason that they can't pay their dehts ; there is no doubt 
that if the jobbers of this city had not trusted Southern traders 
for the past three years, they would be a great deal better 
off than they are. * * * Already our trade with Canada is be- 
coming as promising, sure, and profitable, as our trade with the 
South is uncertain, riskful, and annoying." 

Now, by any body of men not utterly debased by the 
influences of slavery, this language would have been con- 
strued into an invitation to stay at home. But do South- 
ern merchants stay at home ? Do they build up Southern 
commerce ? No ! off they post to the North as regularly 
as the seasons, spring and fall, come round, and there, 
like cringing sycophants, flatter, beg, and scheme, for i 
favors which they have no money to command. 

The better classes of merchants, and indeed of all other 
people, at the North, as elsewhere, have too much genuine 
respect for themselves to wish to have any dealings what- 
ever with those who make merchandise of human beings. 
Limited as is our acquaintance in the city of New-York, 



COMMERCIAL CITIES SOUTHERN COMMERCE. 359 

we know one firm there, a large wholesale house, that 
makes it an invariable rule never to sell goods to a mer- 
chant from the slave States except for cash. Being well 
acquainted with the partners, we asked one of them, on 
,one occasion, why he refused to trust slave-driving mer- 
chants. "Because," said he, "they are too long-winded 
and uncertain ; when we credit them, they occasion us 
linore loss and bother than their trade is worth." Non- 
islaveholders of the South ! recollect that slavery is the 
only impediment to your progress and prosperity, that it 
stands diametrically opposed to all needful reforms, that 
it seeks to sacrifice you entirely for the benefit of others, 
and that it is the one great and only cause of dishonor to 
your country. Will you not abolish it? May Heaven 
help you to do your duty ! 



360 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 






CHAPTER X. 

FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

Finding that we shall have to leave unsaid a great many 
things which we intended to say, and that we shall have 
to omit much valuable matter, the product of other pens 
than our own, hut which, having collected at considerable 
expense, we had hoped to be able to introduce, we have 
concluded to present, under the above heading, only a few 
of the more important particulars. 

In the first place, we will give an explanation of the 
reason 

WHY THIS WORK WAS NOT PUBLISHED IN BALTIMORE. 

A considerable portion of this work was written in Bal- 
timore ; and the whole of it would have been written and 
published there, but for the following odious clause, which 
we extract from the Statutes of Maryland : — 

" Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That 
after the passage of this act, it shall not be lawful for any citi- 
zen of this State, knowingly to make, print or engrave, or aid in 
the making, printing or engraving, within this State, any picto- j 
rial representation, or to write or print, or to aid in the writing or 
printing any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill or other paper of an 
inflammatory character, and having a tendency to excite discon- 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 3G1 

tent, or stir up insurrection amongst the people of color of this 
State, or of either of the other States or Territories of the Unit- 
ed States, or knowingly to carry or send, or to aid in the carry- 
ing or sending the same for circulation amongst the inhabitants of 
either of the other States or Territories of the United States, and 
any person so offending shall be guilty of a felony, and shall on 
conviction be sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary of this 
; State, for a period not less than ten nor more than twenty years, 
from the time of sentence pronounced on such person." — Act 
passed Dec. 1831. See 2nd Dorsey, page 1218. 

Now so long as slaveholders are clothed with the man- 
tle of office, so long will they continue to make laws, like 
the above, expressly calculated to bring the non-slavehold- 
ing whites under a system of vassalage little less onerous 
and debasing than that to which the negroes themselves 
are accustomed. What wonder is it that there is no na- 
tive literature in the South ? The South can never have 
a literature of her own until after slavery shall have been 
abolished. Slaveholders are too lazy and ignorant to write 
it, and the non-slaveholders — even the few whose minds 
are cultivated at all — are not permitted even to make the 
attempt. Down with the oligarchy ! Ineligibility of slave- 
holders — never another vote to the trafficker in human 
flesh ! 

LEGISLATIVE ACTS AGAINST SLAVERY. 

In his Compendium of the Seventh Census, Mr. DeBow 
has compiled the following useful and highly interesting 
facts : — 

" The Continental Congress of 1774 resolved to discontinue the 
slave trade, in which resolution they were anticipated by the Con- 

16 



362 FACTS AXD ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

ventions of Delegates of Virginia and North Carolina. In 1789 
the Convention to frame the federal Constitution, looked to the 
abolition of the traffic in 1808. On the 2nd of March, 1807, Con- 
gress passed an act against importations of Africans into the 
United States after January 1st, 1808. An act in Great Britain 
in 1807 also made the slave trade unlawful. Denmark forbid the 
introduction of African slaves into her colonies after 1804. The 
Congress of Vienna, in 1815, pronounced for the abolition of the 
trade. France abolished it in 1817, and also Spain, but the acts 
•were to take effect after 1820. Portugal abolished it in 1818. 

"In Pennsylvania slavery was abolished in 1780. In New 
Jersey it was provisionally abolished in 1784 ; all children born 
of a slave after 1804 are made free in 1820. In Massachusetts, 
it was declared after the revolution, that slavery was virtually 
abolished by their Constitution, (1780). In 1784 and 1797, Con- 
necticut provided for a gradual extinction of slavery. In Rhode 
Island, after 1784, no person could be born a slave. The Consti 
tutions of Vermont and New Hampshire, respectively, abolished 
slavery. In New York it was provisionally abolished in 1799, 
twenty -eight years' ownership being allowed in slaves born after 
that date, and in 1817 it was enacted that slavery was not to 
exist after ten years, or 1827. The ordinance of 1787 forbid 
slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio." 

Besides the instances enumerated above, slavery has 
been abolished in more than forty different parts of the 
world within the last half century, and with good results 
everywhere, except two or three West India islands, 
where the negro population was greatly in excess of the 
whites ; and even in these, the evils, if any, that have fol- 
lowed, are not justly attributable to abolition, but to the 
previous demoralization produced by slavery. 

In this connection we may very properly introduce the 
testimony of a West India planter to the relative advan- 
tages of Free over Slave Labor. Listen to Charles Petty- 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 363 

jolm, of Barbadoes, who, addressing himself to a citizen 
of our own country, says : — 

'•' In 1834, 1 came in possession of 257 slaves, under the laws 
of England, which required the owner to feed, clothe, and furnish 
them with medical attendance. With this number I cultivated 
my. sugar plantation until the Emancipation Act of August 1st, 
1838, when they all became free. I now hire a portion of those 
slaves, the best and cheapest of course, as you hire men in the 
United States. The average number which I employ is 100. with 
which I cultivate more land at a cheaper rate, and make more 
produce than I did with 257 slaves. With my slaves I made from 
100 to 180 tons of sugar yearly. With 100 free negroes I think 
I do badly if I do not annually produce 250 tons. 

If, in the forty and more instances to which we have 
alluded, the abolition of slavery had proved injurious in 
a majority of cases, the attempt to abolish it elsewhere 
might, perhaps, be regarded as an ill-advised effort ; but, 
seeing that its abolition has worked well in at least four- 
teen-fifteenths of all the cases on record, the fact becomes 
obvious that it is our duty and our interest to continue to 
abolish it until the whole world shall be freed, or until wo 
shall begin to see more evil than good result from our 
acts of emancipation. 

THE TRUE FRIENDS OF THE SOUTH. 

Freesoilers and abolitionists are the only true friends of 
the South ; slaveholders and slave-breeders are downright 
enemies of their own section. Anti-slavery men are work- 
ing for the Union and for the good of the whole world ; 
proslavery men are working for the disunion of the States, 
and for the good of nothing except themselves. Than 



364 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

such men as Greeley, Seward, Sumner, Clay, and Birney, 
the South can have no truer friends — nor can slavery have 
more implacable foes. 

For the purpose of showing that Horace Greeley is not, , 
as he is generally represented by the oligarchy, an invete- - 
rate hater of the South, we will here introduce an extract t 
from one of his editorial articles in a late number of the ;' 
New York Tribune — a faithful advocate of freedom, whose i 
circulation, we are happy to say, is greater than the 
aggregate circulation of more than twenty of the principal Ij 
proslavery sheets published at the South : — 

" Is it in vain that we pile fact upon fact, proof on proof, show- 
ing that slavery is a blight and a curse to the States which cher- 
ish it 1 These facts are multitudinous as the leaves of the forest ; 
conclusive as the demonstrations of geometry. Nobody attempts 
to refute them, but the champions of slavery extension seem de- 
termined to persist in ignoring them. Let it be understood, 
then, once for all, that we do not hate the South, war on the 
South, nor seek to ruin the South, in resisting the extension of 
slavery. We most earnestly believe human bondage a curse to 
the South, and to all whom it affects ; but we do not labor for its 
overthrow otherwise than through the conviction of the South of f; 
its injustice and mischief. Its extension into new Territories we i 
determinedly resist, not by any means from ill will to the South, i 
but under the impulse of good will to all mankind. We believe t 
the establishment of slavery in Kansas or any other Western n 
Territory would prolong its existence in Virginia and Maryland, 
by widening the market and increasing the price of slaves, and I 
thereby increasing the profits of slave-breeding, and the conse- I 
quent incitement thereto. Those who urge that slavery would 
not go into Kansas if permitted, wilfully shut their eyes to the 
fact that it has gone into Missouri, lying in exactly the same lati- I 
tude, and is now strongest in that north-western angle of said 
State, which was covertly filched from what is now Kansas, v 
within the last twenty years. Even if the growth of hemp, corn;. 1 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 365 

and tobacco were not so profitable in Eastern Kansas, as it evi- 
dently must be, tbe growth of slaves for more Southern con- 
sumption would inevitably prove as lucrative there as in Virginia 
and Maryland, which lie in corresponding latitudes, and whose 
chief staple export to-day consists of negro bondmen destined for 
the plantations of Louisiana and Mississippi, which could be sup- 
plied more conveniently and cheaply from Kansas than from their 
present breeding-places this side of the Alleghanies. 

Whenever we draw a parallel between Northern and Southern 
production, industry, thrift, wealth, the few who seek to parry 
the facts at all complain that the instances are unfairly selected — 
that the commercial ascendancy of the North, with the profits 
and facilities thence accruing, accounts for the striking prepon- 
derance of the North. In vain we insist that slavery is the cause 
of this very commercial ascendancy — that Norfolk and Richmond 
and Charleston might have been to this country what Boston, 
New-York and Philadelphia now are, had not slavery spread its 
pall over and paralyzed the energies of the South." 

This may be regarded as a fair expression of the senti- 
ments of a great majority of the people north of Mason 
and Dixon's line. Our Northern cousins " do not hate the 
South, war on the South, nor seek to ruin the South ;" on 
the contrary, they love our particular part of the nation, 
and, like dutiful, sensible, upright men, they would pro- 
mote its interests by facilitating the abolition of slavery. 
Success to their efforts ! 

SLAVERY THOUGHTFUL SIGNS OF CONTRITION. 

The real condition of the South is most graphically de- 
scribed in the following doleful admissions from the Charles- 
ton Standard : — 

"In its every aspect our present condition is provincial. We 
have within our limits no solitary metropolis of interest or ideas 



366 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

— no marts of exchange — no radiating centres of opinion. "What- 
ever we have of genius and productive energy, goes freely in to 
swell the importance of the North. Possessing the material 
which constitutes two-thirds of the commerce of the whole coun- 
try, it might have been supposed that we could have influence 
upon the councils of foreign States ; but we are nevef -taken into 
contemplation. It might have been supposed that England, 
bound to us by the cords upon which depend the existence of 
four millions of her subjects, would be considerate of our feel- 
ings ; but receiving her cotton from the North, it is for them she 
has concern, and it is her interest and her pleasure to reproach 
us. It might have been supposed, that, producing the material 
which is sent abroad, to us would come the articles that are taken 
in exchange for it ; but to the North they go for distribution, and 
to us are parcelled out the fabrics that are suited to so remote a 
section. 

Instead, therefore, of New-York being tributary to Norfolk, 
Charleston, Savannah or New Orleans, these cities are tributary 
to New-York. Instead of the merchants of New- York standing 
cap in hand to the merchants of Charleston, the merchants of 
Charleston stand cap in hand to the merchants of New-York. — 
Instead of receiving foreign ships in Southern waters, and calling 
up the merchants of the country to a distribution of the cargo, 
the merchants of the South are hurried off to make a distribution 
elsewhere. In virtue of our relations to a greater system, we 
have little development to internal interests ; receiving supplies 
from the great centre, we have made little effort to supply our- 
selves. We support the makers of boots, shoes, hats, coats, shirts, 
flannels, blankets, carpets, chairs, tables, mantels, mats, carriages, 
jewelry, cradles, couches, coffins, by the thousand and hundreds 
of thousands ; but they scorn to live amongst us. They must 
have the gaieties and splendors of a great metropolis, and are not 
content to vegetate upon the dim verge of this remote frontier. 

As it is in material interests, so it is in arts and letters — our 
pictures are painted at the North, our books are published at the 
North, our periodicals and papers are printed at the North. We 
are even fed on police reports and villany from the North. The 
papers published at the South which ignore the questions at issue 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE -WAYSIDE. 361 

between the sections are generally well sustained ; the books 
which expose the evils of our institution are even read with 
avidity beyond our limits, but the ideas that are turned to the 
condition of the South are intensely provincial. If, as things now 
are, a man should rise with all the genius of Shakspeare, or Dick- 
ens, or Fielding, or of all the three combined, and speak from the 
South, he would not receive enough to pay the costs of publica- 
tion. If published at the South, his book would never be seen 
or heard of, and published at the North it would not be read. — 
So perfect is our provincialism, therefore, that enterprise is forced 
to the North for a sphere — talent for a market — genius for the 
ideas upon which to work — indolence for ease, and the tourist for 
attractions." 

This extract exhibits in bold relief, and in small space, 
a large number of the present evils of past errors. It is 
charmingly frank and truthful. DeQuincey's Confessions 
of an opium eater are nothing to it. A distinguished writer 
on medical jurisprudence informs us that " the knowledge 
of the disease is half the cure ;" and if it be true, as per- 
haps it is, we think the Standard is in a fair way to be 
reclaimed from the enormous vices of proslavery statism. 

PROGRESS OF FREEDOM IN THE SOUTH. 

" Now, by St. Paul, the work goes bravely on." 

As well might the oligarchy attempt to stay the flux 
and reflux of the tides, as to attempt to stay the progress 
of Freedom in the South. Approved of God, the edict of 
the genius of Universal Emancipation has been proclaimed 
to the world, and nothing, save Deity himself, can possi- 
bly reverse it. To connive at the perpetuation of slavery 
is to disobey the commands of Heaven. Not to be an 



368 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

abolitionist is to be a wilful and diabolical instrument of 
the devil. The South needs to be free, the South wants 
to be free, the South shall be free ! 

The following extracts from Southern journals will show 
that the glorious light of a better era has already begun 
to penetrate and dispel the portentous clouds of slavery. 
The Wellsburg (Va.) Herald, an independent paper, refer- 
ring to the vote of thirteen Democrats from that section, 
refusing, in the Virginia Legislature, in 1856, "to appro- 
priate money from the general treasury for the recapture 
of runaway slaves," says : — 

" We presume these delegates in some degree represent their 
constituents, and we are thereby encouraged and built up in the 
confidence that there are other interests in Virginia to be seen to 
besides those pertaining to slavery." 

A non-slaveholding Southron, in the course of a commu- 
nication in a more recent number of the same journal, 

says : — 

u We are taxed to support slavery. The clean cash goes out 
of our own pockets into the pockets of the slaveholder, and this 
in many ways. I will now allude to but two. If a slave, for 
crime, is put to death or transported, the owner is paid for him 
out of the public treasury, and under this law thousands are paid 
out every year. Again, a standing arm}' is kept up in the city of 
Richmond for no other purpose than to be ready to quell insur- 
rection among the slaves ; this is paid for out of the public trea- 
sury annually. This standing arm}- is called the public guard, 
but it is no less a standing army always kept up. We will quote 
from the acts of 1856 the expense of these two items to the State, 
on the 23d and 24th pages of the acts : — ' To pay for slaves exe- 
cuted and transported. $22,000 ;' ' to the public guard at Rich- 
mond, $24,000.' This, be it noticed, is only for one year, mak- 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY TTIE WAYSIDE. 369 

ing near §50.000 for these two objects in one j-ear ; but it can 
be shown by the present unequal plan of taxation between slave 
property and other property, that this is but a small item of our 
cash pocketed by the slaveholders ; and yet some will say we 
have no reason to complain." 

The editor of the Wheeling Gazette publishes the follow- 
ing as his platform on the slavery question : — 

"Allying ourself to neither North nor South, on our own hook 
we adopt the following platform as our platform on this question, 
from which we never have and never will recede. We may fall 

071 it, but WILL NEVER LEAVE IT. 

The severance of the General Government from slavery. 

The repeal of the fugitive slave law. 

The repeal of the Nebraska Kansas Bill. 

No more slave territories. 

The purchase and mawcmissioh op slaves in the District 
of Columbia, or the removal of the seat of government to 
free territory." 

Says the Baltimore Clipper : — 

'The South is contending for, and the North against, the ex- 
tension of slavery into the territories ; but we do not think that 
either side would consent to dissolve the Union about the negro 
population— a population which we look upon as a curse to the 
nation, and should rejoice to see removed to their native clime 
of Africa." 

The National Era, one of the best papers in the country, 
published in Washington City, D. C, says :— 

" The tendency of slavery to diffuse itself, and to crowd out 
free labor, was early observed by American patriots, North and 
South ; and Mr. Jefferson, the great apostle of Republicanism, 
made an effort, in 1784, to cut short the encroaching tide of bar- 
baric despotism, by prohibiting slavery in all the territories of 

16* 



870 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

the Union, down to thirty-one degrees of latitude, which was 
then our Southern boundary. His beneficent purpose failed, not 
for want of a decisive majority of votes present in the Congress 
of the Confederation, but in consequence of the absence of the 
delegates from one or two States, which were necessary to the 
constitutional majority. "When the subject again came up, in 
1787, Mr. Jefferson was Minister to France, and the famous ordi- 
nance of that year was adopted, prohibiting slavery North and 
West of the Ohio river. Between 1784 and 1787, the strides of 
slavery westward, into Tennessee and Kentucky, had become too 
considerable to admit of the policy of exclusion ; and besides 
those regions were then integral parts of Virginia and North 
Carolina, and of course they could not be touched without the 
consent of those States. In 1820, another effort was made to ar- 
rest the progress of slavery, which threatened to monopolize the 
whole territory west of the Mississippi. In the meantime the 
South had apostatized from the faith of Jefferson. It had ceased 
to love universal liberty, and the growing importance of the cot- 
ton culture had caused the people to look with indifference upon 
the moral deformity of slavery ; and, as a matter of course, the poli- 
ticians became its apologists and defenders. After a severe strug- 
gle a compromise was agreed upon, by which Missouri was to be 
admitted with slavery, which was the immediate point in contro- 
versy ; and slavery was to be excluded from all the territory 
North and West of that State. 

" We have shown, from the most incontestable evidence, that 
there is in slave society a much greater tendency to diffuse itself 
into new regions, than belongs to freedom, for the reasou that it 
has no internal vitality. It cannot live if circumscribed, and 
must, like a consumptive, be continually roving for a change of 
air to recuperate its wasting energies." 

In the Missouri Legislature, in January, 1857, Mr. Brown, 
of St. Louis, proved himself a hero, a patriot, and a states- 
man, in the following words : — 

"lama Free-Soiler and I don't den}- it. No word or vote of 
mine shall ever inure to the benefit of such a monstrous doctrine 






FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 311 

as the extension of Slavery over the patrimony of the free white 
laborers of the country. I am for the greatest good of the 
greatest number, and against the system which monopolizes the 
free and fertile territory of our country for a few slaveholders, 
to the exclusion of thousands upon thousands of the sinewy sons 
of toil. The time will come, and perhaps very soon, when the 
people will rule for their own benefit and not for that of a class 
which, numerically speaking, is insignificant. I stand here in 
the midst of the assembled Legislature of Missouri to avow my- 
self a Free-Soiler. Let those who are scared at names shrink 
from the position if they will. I shall take my stand in favor of 
the white man. Here in Missouri I shall support the rights, the 
dignity and the welfare of the 800,000 non-slaveholders in pre- 
ference to upholding and perpetuating the dominancy of the 
30,000 slaveholders who inhabit our State." 

The St. Louis Democrat, in an editorial article, under 
date of January 28, 1851, entitled itself to the favorable 
regard of every true lover of liberty, by talking thus bold- 
ly on the subject of the " Emancipation of Slavery in 
Missouri" : — 

" Viewing the question as a subject of State policy, we will ven- 
ture to say that it is the grandest ever propounded to the people. 
If it were affirmed in a constitutional convention, and thoroughly 
carried out without any violation of vested rights, Missouri, in a 
few years subsequent to its consummation, would be the fore- 
most State on the American continent. Population would flow 
in from all sides were the barrier of negro slavery once removed, 
and in place of 80,000 slaves, we should have 800.000 white men, 
which, in addition to the population we would have at that time, 
would give us at once an aggregate of two millions. 

Is Missouri ambitious of political power? — a power which is 
slipping away from the South. The mode of acquiring it is 
found. We are not rash enough to attempt a description of our 
condition if the element of free labor were introduced. The 
earth would give up its hidden treasures at its bidding as the sea 



3*72 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

will give up its dead ; and the soil would bloom more luxuriantly 
than if it drank the dews of Hermon nightly ; ten thousand 
keels would vex our rivers, towns along their banks would grow 
into cities, and St. Louis would soon unite in itself the attributes 
of the greatest commercial manufacturing and literary metropolis 
in the world. Let it be remembered that we have every inani- 
mate element of wealth and power within our limits, and that 
we require only labor — free labor — for we need not say that servile 
labor is inadequate. * * * 

There need be no pernicious agitation, and even if there 
should, it is the penalty which we cannot avoid paying at some 
time ; and it is easier to pay it now, than in the future. Who 
that watches passing events and indications, is not sensible of 
the fact that great internal convulsions await the slave States ? 
Better to grapple with the danger in time, if danger there be, 
and avert it, than wait until it becomes formidable. One thing 
is certain, or history is no guide : that is, that slavery cannot be 
perpetuated anywhere. An agitation now would be the effort 
of the social system to throw off a disease which had not 
touched its vitals ; hereafter it would be the struggle for life 
with a mortal sickness. But we do not apprehend any agita- 
tion more violent than has been forced upon us for years by the 
pro-slavery politicians. Agitating the slavery question, has 
been their constant business, and nothing worse has resulted 
from it than their elevation to office — no very trifling evil, by 
the way — and the temporary subjugation of Kansas. 

Besides, we know that all the free States emancipated their 
slaves, and England and France theirs suddenly ; and we have 
yet to learn that a dangerous agitation arose in any instance." 

In addition to all this, it is well known, and we thank 

Heaven for the fact and for the indication, that, at the 

election held for Mayor of St. Lonis, in April, 1851, the 

Abolition candidate, himself a native of Virginia, was 

triumphantly elevated to the chief magistracy of the city. 

Three cheers for St, Louis I nine for Missouri '! thirteen 

for the South ! 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 373 

In reference to the late election in St. Louis, in which 
the Emancipation party triumphed, the Wheeling (Va.) 
Intelligencer says : — 

" These elections do demonstrate this fact, beyond a cavil, that 
the sentiment of the great majority of the people of this Union 
is irrevocably opposed to the extension of slavery ; that they are 
determined, if overwhelming public sentiment can avail anything, 
another slave State shall not be admitted into the confederacy. 
And why are they so determined ? Because they believe, and 
not only believe, but see and know, that slavery is an unmiti- 
gated curse to the soil that sustains it. They know this, because 
they see every free State outstripping every slave State in all the 
elements that make a people powerful and prosperous ; because 
they see the people in the one educated and thrifty, and in the 
other ignorant and thriftless ; because they have before their eyes 
a State like our own, once the very Union itself almost in impor- 
tance, to-day taking her rank as a fifth rate power." 

Non-slaveholders of the South ! fail not to support the 
papers — the Southern papers — that support your interests. 
Chief amongst those papers are the St. Louis (Mo.) Demo- 
crat, the National Era, published in Washington City, D. 
C, the Baltimore Clipper, the Wheeling (Y&.) Gazette, and 
the Wellsburg (Va.) Herald. 

A RIGHT FEELING IN THE RIGHT QUARTER. 

There is but one way for the oligarchy to perpetuate 
slavery in the Southern States, and that is by perpetuating 
absolute ignorance among the non-slaveholding whites. 
This it is quite impossible for them to do. God has scat- 
tered the seeds of knowledge throughout every portion of 
the South, and they are, as might have been expected, be- 
ginning to take root in her fertile soil. The following ex- 



374 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

tracts from letters which have been received since we 
commenced writing this work, will show how powerfully 
the spirit of freedom is operating upon the minds of intel- 
ligent, thinking men in the slave States. 

A Baltimorean, writing to us a while previous to the 
last Presidential election, says : — 

" I see that the Trustees of the University of North Carolina 
have dismissed Prof. Hedrick for writing a letter in favor of Re- 
publican principles. Oh, what an inglorious source of reflection 
for an American citizen ! To think, to know that our boasted 
liberty of speech is a myth, an abstraction. To see a poor pro- 
fessor crushed under the feet of the tyrannical magnates of slavery, 
for daring to speak the honest sentiments of his heart. Where 
is fanaticism now, North or South ? Oh, my country, my coun- 
try, whither art thou tending ? Truly we have fallen upon 
degenerate days. God grant that they may not be like those 
of ancient Greece and Rome, the forerunners of our country's 
ruin." 

In a letter under date of November 1, 1856, a friend 
who resides in the eastern part of North Carolina, 
says : — 

'' In the papers which reached me last week I notice that our 
own State has been disgraced by a junto of pro-slavery hot-spurs, 
who had the audacity to meet in Raleigh for the express purpose 
of concocting measures for a dissolution of the Union. It appears 
that the three leading spirits of this cabal were the present gov- 
ernors of three neighboring States — three treasonable disturbers 
of the public peace, who, under the circumstances, should, in my 
opinion, have been shot dead upon the spot ! I have each of 
their names noted down in my memorandum, and I shall cer- 
tainly die unsatisfied, if I do not live to hear of their being tho- 
roughly tarred and feathered, and ridden on a rail, by the non- 
Biavcholding whites, against whose welfare their machinations 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BT THE WAYSIDE. 315 

have been chiefly leveled. Rely upon it, that, if they do not soon 
sneak away into their graves, a day of retributive justice will 
most assuredly overtake them." 

A native and resident of one of the towns in western 
North Carolina, under date of March 19, 1851, writes to us 
as follows : — 

" While patrolling a few nights ago I was forcibly struck with 
the truthfulness of the remarks contained in your last letter.— 
Here I am, a poor but sober and industrious man, with a family 
dependent on me for support, and after I have finished my day's 
labor, I am compelled to walk the streets from nine in the even- 
ing till three in the morning, to restrain the roving propensities 
of other people's ' property ' — niggers. Why should I thus be 
deprived of sleep that the slaveholder may slumber 1 I frankly 
acknowledge my indebtedness to you for opening my eyes upon 
this subject. The more I think and see of slavery the more I de- 
test it. * * * I am becoming restless, and have been debat- 
ing within my own mind whether I had not better emigrate to a 
free State. * * * If I live, I am determined to oppose slavery 
somewhere — here or elsewhere. It will be impossible for me to 
keep my lips sealed much longer. Indeed, I sometimes feel that 
I have been remiss in my duty in not having opened them ere 
now. But for the unfathomable ignorance that pervades the mass 
of the poor, deluded, slavery- saddled whites around me, I would 
not suppress my sentiments another hour." 

Again, under date of April T, 1851, he says : — 

" I thank God that slavery will, in my opinion, soon be abol- 
ished. I wish to Heaven I had the ability to raise my voice suc- 
cessfully in favor of a just system to abolish it. I would indeed 
be rejoiced to have an opportunity to do something to relieve 
the South of the awful curse. Fear not that you will meet with 
no sympathizers in the South. You will have hosts of friends on 
every side — even in this town, if I am not greatly mistaken, a 



376 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

large majority of the citizens will add an enthusiastic Amen ! to 
ycur work." 

We might furnish similar extracts from other letters, 
but these, we think, are quite sufficient to show that the 
millennium of freedom is rapidly dawning throughout the 
benighted regions of slavery. Coveted events are happen- 
ing in charming succession. All we have to do is to wait 
and work a little longer. 

THE ILLITERATE POOR WHITES OF THE SOUTH. 

Had we the power to sketch a true picture of life 
among the non-slaveholding whites of the South, every in- 
telligent man who has a spark of philanthropy in his breast, 
and who should happen to gaze upon the picture, would 
burn with unquenchable indignation at that system of Afri- 
can slavery which entails unutterable miseries on the supe- 
rior race. It is quite impossible, however, to describe accu- 
rately the deplorable ignorance and squalid poverty of the 
class to which we refer. The serfs of Russia have reason 
to congratulate themselves that they are neither the 
negroes nor the non-slaveholding whites of the South. 
Than the latter there can be no people in Christendom 
more unhappily situated. Below will be found a few 
extracts which will throw some light on the subject now 
under consideration. 

Says William Gregg, in an address delivered before the 
South Carolina Institution, in 1851 : — 

" From the best estimates that I have been able to make, I 
put down the white people who ought to work, and who do not, 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 311 

or who are so employed as to be wholly unproductive to the 
State, at one hundred and twenty-five thousand. Any man who 
is an observer of things could hardly pass through our country, 
without being struck with the fact that all the capital, enter- 
prise, and intelligence, is employed in directing slave labor ; and 
the consequence is, that a large portion of our poor white people 
are wholly neglected, and are suffered to while away an exist- 
ence in a state but one step in advance of the Indian of the 
forest. It is an evil of vast magnitude, and nothing but a change 
in public sentiment will effect its cure. These people must be 
brought into daily contact with the rich and intelligent — they 
must be stimulated to mental action, and taught to appreciate 
education and the comforts of civilized life ; and this, we believe, 
may be effected only by the introduction of manufactures. My 
experience at Graniteville has satisfied me that unless our poor 
people can be brought together in villages, and some means of 
employment afforded them, it will be an utterly hopeless effort to 
undertake to educate them. We have collected at that place 
about eight hundred people, and as likely looking a set of coun- 
try girls as may be found — industrious and orderly people, but 
deplorably ignorant, three-fourths of the adults not being able to 
read or to write their own names. 

' : It is only necessary to build a manufacturing village of 
shanties, in a healthy location, in any part of the State, to have 
crowds of their people around you, seeking employment at half 
the compensation given to operatives at the North. It is indeed 
painful to be brought in contact with such ignorance and degra- 
dation." 

Again he asks : — 

" Shall we pass unnoticed the thousands of poor, ignorant, 
degraded white people among us, w T ho, in this land of plenty, 
live in comparative nakedness and starvation ? Many a one is 
reared in proud South Carolina, from birfh to manhood, who 
has never passed a month in which he has not, some part of the 
time, been stinted for meat. Many a mother is there who will 
tell you that her children are but scantily provided with bread, 



378 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

and much more scantily with meat ; and, if they be clad with com- 
fortable raiment, it is at the expense of these scanty allowances 
of food. These may be startling statements, but they are never- 
theless true ; and if not believed in Charleston, the members of 
our legislature who have traversed the State in electioneering 
campaigns can attest the truth." 

In an article on " Manufactures in South Carolina," pub- 
lished some time ago in DeBow's Review, J. H. Taylor, of 
Charleston (S. C.) says : — 

" There is in some quarters, a natural jealousy of the slightest 
innovation upon established habits, and because an effort has 
been made to collect the poor and unemployed white population 
into our new factories, fears have arisen that some evil would 
grow out of the introduction of such establishments among 
us. * * * The poor man has a vote as well as the rich man, 
and in our State the number of the former will largely overbalance 
the latter. So long as these poor but industrious people can see no 
mode of living except by a degrading operation of work with the 
negro upon the plantation, they will be content to endure life in 
its most discouraging forms, satisfied that they are above the 
slave, though faring often worse than he." 

Speaking in favor of manufactures, the Hon. J. H. 

Lumpkin, of Georgia, said in 1852 : — 

" It is objected that these manufacturing establishments will 
become the hot -beds of crime. But I am by no means ready to 
concede that our poor, degraded, half-fed, half-clothed, and 
ignorant population — without Sabbath Schools, or any other 
kind of instruction, meutal or moral, or without any just appre- 
ciation of character — will be injured by giving them employment, 
which will bring them under the oversight of employers, who 
will inspire them with self-respect by taking an interest in their 
welfare." 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 319 

In a paper on the " Extension of Cotton and Wool Facto- 
ries at the South," Mr. Steadman, of Tennessee, says : — 

" In Lowell, labor is paid the fair compensation of 80 cents a 
day for men, and $2 a week for women, beside board, while in 
Tennessee the average compensation for labor does not exceed 50 
cents per day for men, and $1,25 per week for women." 

In the course of a speech which he delivered in Congress 
several years ago, Mr. T. L. Clingman, of North Carolina, 
said : — 

" Our manufacturing establishments can obtain the raw mate- 
rial (cotton) at nearly two cents on the pound cheaper than the 
New-England establishments. Labor is likewise one hundred 
per cent, cheaper. In the upper parts of the State, the labor of 
either a free man or a slave, including board, clothing, &c, can 
be obtained for from $110 to $120 per annum. It will cost at 
least twice that sum in New-England. The difference in the cost 
of female labor, whether free or slave, is even greater." 

The Richmond (Va.) Dispatch says : — 

" We will only suppose that the ready-made shoes imported 
into this city from the North, and sold here, were manufactured 
in Richmond. What a great addition it would be to the means 
of employment ! How many boys and females would find the 
means of earning their bread, who are now suffering for a regular 
supply of the necessaries of life." 

A citizen of New-Orleans, writing in DeBow's Review, 
says : — 

" At present the sources of employment open to females (save 
in menial offices) are very limited ; and an inability to procure 
suitable occupation is an evil much to be deplored, as tending in 
its consequeuces to produce demoralization. The superior grades 
of female labor may be considered such as imply a necessity for 



380 FACTS ANT) ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

education on the part of the employee, while the menial class is 
generally regarded as of the lowest ; and in a slave State, this 
standard is ' in the lowest depths, a lower deep,' from the fact, 
that, by association, it is a reduction of the white servant to the 
level of their colored fellow-menials." 

Black slave labor, though far less valuable, is almost 
invariably better paid than free white labor. The reason 
is this : The fiat of the oligarchy has made it fashionable to 
" have negroes around," and there are, wo are grieved to 
say, many non-slaveholding whites, (lickspittles,) who, in 
order to retain on their premises a hired slave whom they 
falsely imagine secures to them not only the appearance 
of wealth, but also a position of high social standing in 
the community, keep themselves in a perpetual strait. 

Last Spring we made it our special business to ascertain 
the ruling rates of wages paid for labor, free and slave, in 
North Carolina. We found sober, energetic white men, 
between twenty and forty years of age, engaged in agri- 
cultural pursuits at a salary of $84 per annum — including 
board only ; negro men, slaves, who performed little more 
than half the amount of labor, and who were exceedingly 
sluggish, awkward, and careless in all their movements, 
were hired out on adjoining farms at an average of about 
$115 per annum, including board, clothing, and medical 
attendance. Free white men and slaves were in the em- 
ploy of the North Carolina Railroad Company ; the former, 
whose services, in our opinion, were at least twice as val- 
uable as the services of the latter, received only $12 per 
month each ; the masters of the latter received $16 per 
month for every slave so employed. Industrious, tidy 



FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 381 

white girls, from sixteen to twenty years of age, had much 
difficulty in hiring themselves out as domestics in private 
families for $40 per annum — board only included ; negro 
wenches, slaves, of corresponding ages, so ungraceful, 
stupid and filthy that no decent man would ever permit 
one of them to cross the threshold of his dwelling, were in 
brisk demand at from $65 to $?0 per annum, including 
victuals, clothes, and medical attendance. These are facts, 
and in considering them, the students of political and so- 
cial economy will not fail to arrive at conclusions of their 
own. 

Notwithstanding the greater density of population in 
the free States, labor of every kind is, on an average, about 
one hundred per cent, higher there than it is in the slave 
States. This is another important fact, and one that every 
non-slaveholding white should keep registered in his mind. 

Poverty, ignorance, and superstition, are the three lead- 
ing characteristics of the non-slaveholding whites of the 
South. Many of them grow up to the age of maturity, and 
pass through life without even owning as much as five 
dollars at any one time. ' Thousands of them die at an ad- 
vanced age, as ignorant of the common alphabet as if it 
had never been invented. All are more or less impressed 
with a belief in witches, ghosts, and supernatural signs. 
Few are exempt from habits of sensuality and intemperance. 
None have anything like adequate ideas of the duties 
which they owe either to their God, to themselves, or to 
their fellow-men. Pitiable, indeed, in the fullest sense of 
the term, is their condition. 

It is the almost utter lack of an education that has re- 



382 FACTS AND ARGUMENTS BY THE WAYSIDE. 

duced them to their present unenviable situation. In the 
whole South there is scarcely a publication of any kind 
devoted to their interests. They are now completely un- 
der the domination of the oligarchy, and it is madness to 
suppose that they will ever be able to rise to a position of 
true manhood, until after the slave power shall have been 
utterly overthrown. 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 383 



CHAPTER XI. 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 



It is with some degree of hesitation that we add a chap- 
ter on Southern Literature — not that the theme is inap- 
propriate to this work ; still less, that it is an unfruitful 
one ; but our hesitation results from our conscious inabil- 
ity, in the limited time and space at our command, to do 
the subject justice. Few, except those whose experience 
has taught them, have any adequate idea of the amount 
of preparatory labor requisite to the production of a work 
into which the statistical element largely enters ; espe- 
cially is this so, when the statistics desired are not readi- 
ly accessible through public and official documents. The 
author who honestly aims at entire accuracy in his state- 
ments, may find himself baffled for weeks in his pursuit 
of a single item of information, not of much importance in 
itself perhaps, when separately considered, but necessary 
in its connection with others, to the completion of a har- 
monious whole. Not unfrequently, during the preparation 
of the preceding pages, have we been subjected to this 
delay and annoyance. 

The following brief references to the protracted prepar- 
atory labors and inevitable delays to which authors are 



384 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

subjected, may interest our readers, and induce them to 
regard with charity any deficiencies, either in detail or in 
general arrangement, which, owing to the necessary haste 
of preparation, these concluding pages of our work may 
exhibit : 

Goldsmith was engaged nine years in the preparation 
of "The Traveller," and five years in gathering and arrang- 
ing the incidents of his "Deserted Village," and two years 
in their versification. 

Bancroft, the American Historian, has been more than 
thirty years engaged upon his History of the United States, 
from his projection of the work to the present date ; and 
that History is not yet completed. 

Hildreth, a no less eminent historian, from the time he 
began to collect materials for his History of the United 
States to the date of its completion, devoted no less than 
twenty-five years to the work. 

Webster, our great lexicographer, gave thirty-five years 
of his life in bringing his Unabridged Dictionary of the 
English Language to the degree of accuracy and complete- 
ness in which we now find it. 

Dr. John W. Mason, after ten years' labor in the accu- 
mulation of materials for a Life of Alexander Hamilton, 
was compelled to relinquish the work on account of im- 
paired health. 

Mr. James Banks, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, who 
recently delivered a lecture upon the Life and Character of 
Flora McDonald, was eighteen years in the collection of 
his materials. 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 385 

Oulibicheff, a distinguished Russian author, spent twenty- 
five years in writing the Life of Mozart. 

Examples of this kind might be multiplied to an almost 
indefinite extent. Indeed, almost all the poets, prose- 
writers, painters, sculptors, composers, and other devotees 
of Art, who have won undying fame for themselves, have 
done so through long years of earnest and almost unre- 
mitted toil. 

We are quite conscious that the fullness and accuracy 
of statement which are desirable in this chapter cannot be 
attained in the brief time allowed us for its completion ; 
but, though much will necessarily be omitted that ought 
to be said, we shall endeavor to make no statement of 
facts which are not well authenticated, and no inferences 
from the same which are not logically true. We can only 
promise to do the best in our power, with the materials at 
our command, to exhibit the inevitable influence of slavery 
upon Southern Literature, and to demonstrate that the ac- 
cursed institution so cherished by the oligarchy, is no less 
prejudicial to our advancement in letters, than it is destruc- 
tive of our material prosperity. 

What is the actual condition of Literature at the South ? 
Our question includes more than simple authorship in the 
various departments of letters, from the compilation of a 
primary reader to the production of a Scientific or Theo- 
logical Treatise. We comprehend in it all the activities 
engaged in the creation, publication, and sale of books 
and periodicals, from the penny primer to the heavy folio, 
and from the clingy, coarse-typed weekly paper, to the 

large, well-filled daily. 

11 



336 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

It were unjust to deny a degree of intellectual activity 
to the South. It has produced a few good authors— a few 
competent editors, and a moderately large number of 
clever magazinists, paragraphists, essayists and critics. 
Absolutely, then, it must be conceded that the South has 
something that may be called a literature ; it is only when 
we speak of her in comparison with the North, that we say, 
with a pardonably strong expression, " The South has no 
literature." This was virtually admitted by more than one 
speaker at the late " Southern Convention" at Savannah. 
Said a South Carolina orator on that occasion : " It is im- 
portant that the South should have a literature of her own, 
to defend her principles and her rights ;" a sufficiently 
plain concession that she has not, now, such a literature. 
But facts speak more significantly than the rounded periods 
of Convention orators. Let us look at facts, then. 

First, turning our attention to the periodical literature 
of the South, we obtain these results : By the census of 
1850, we ascertain that the entire number of periodicals, 
daily, semi-weekly, weekly, semi-monthly, monthly and 
quarterly, published in the slave States, including the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, were seven hundred and twenty-two. 
These had an aggregate yearly circulation of ninety-two 
million one hundred and sixty-seven thousand one hundred 
and twenty-nine. (92,167,129). The number of periodicals, 
of every class, published in the non-slavcliolding States 
(exclusive of California) was one thousand eight hundred 
and ninety-three, with an aggregate yearly circulation of 
three hundred and thirty-three million three hundred and 
eighty-six thousand and eighty-one. (333,336,081). 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 381 

We are aware that there may be inaccuracies in the fore- 
going' estimates ; but the compilers of the census, not we, 
are responsible for them. Besides, the figures are unques- 
tionably as fair for the South as for the North ; we accept 
them, therefore, as a just basis of our comparisons. Nearly 
seven years have elapsed since these statistics were taken, 
and these seven years have wrought an immense change 
in the journalism of the North, without any corresponding 
change in that of the South. It is noteworthy that, as a 
general thing, the principal journals of the free States are 
more comprehensive in their scope, more complete in every 
department, and enlist, if not a higher order of talent, at 
least more talent, than they did seven years ago. This im- 
provement extends not only to the metropolitan, but to the 
country papers also. In fact, the very highest literary 
ability, in finance, in political economy, in science, in sta- 
tism, in law, in theology, in medicine, in the belles-lettres, 
is laid under contribution by the journals of the non-slave- 
holding States. This is true only to a very limited degree 
of Southern journals. Their position, with but few excep- 
tions, is substantially the same that it was ten years ago s 
They are neither worse nor better — the imbecility and in- 
ertia which attaches to everything which slavery touches, 
clings to them now as tenaciously as it did when Henry 
A. Wise thanked God for the paucity of newspapers in the 
Old Dominion, and the platitudes of " Father" Ritchie were 
recognized as the political gospel of the South. They have 
not, so far as we can learn, increased materially in number, 
nor in the aggregate of their yearly circulation. In the 
free States, no week passes that does not add to the num- 



388 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

ber of their journals, and extend the circle of their readers 
and their influence. Since the census tables to which we 
have referred were prepared, two of the many excellent 
weekly journals of which the city of New-York can boast, 
have sprung into being, and attained an aggregate circu- 
lation more than twice as large as that of the entire news- 
paper press of Virginia in 1850— and exceeding, by some 
thousands, the aggregate circulation of the two hundred 
and fifty journals of which Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, 
Georgia, North Carolina and Florida, could boast at the 
time above-mentioned. 

In this connection, we beg leave to introduce the fol- 
lowing letter, kindly furnislhed us by the proprietors of 
the N. Y. Tribune, in answer to enquiries which we ad- 
dressed to them : — 

Tribune Office. New York, f 
30th May : 1857. ' $ 
Me. II. R. Helper, 

Sir .— 
In answer to your inquiry we inform you that we employ in 
our building one hundred and seventy-six persons regularly: 
this does not include our carriers and cartmen, nor does it include 
the men employed in the Job Office in our building. During 
the past year we have used in printing The Tribune, Forty-four 
thousand nine hundred and seventy nine (44,979) reams of paper, 
weighing two million three hundred and ten thousand one 
hundred and thirty (2,310,130) pounds. We publish one hundred 
and seventy-six thousand copies of our weekly edition, which 
goes to press, the second form, at 7 1-2 o'clock, A. M. and is 
finished at 2 A. M. the next morning. Our mailers require 
eighteen to nineteen hours to mail our "Weekly, which makes 
from thirty to thirty-two cart loads. 

Yery respectfully, 

Greeley & McElrath. 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 389 

Throughout the non-slaveholding States, the newspaper 
or magazine that has not improved during the last decade 
of years, is an exception to the general rule. Throughout 
the entire slaveholding States, the newspaper or maga- 
zine that has improved during that time, is no less an 
exception to the general rule that there obtains. Outside 
of the larger cities of the South, there are not, probably, 
half a dozen newspapers in the whole slaveholding region 
that can safely challenge a comparison with the country- 
press of the North. What that country-press was twenty 
years ago, the country-press of the South is now. 

We do not deny that the South has produced able jour- 
nalists ; and that some of the newspapers of her princi- 
pal cities exhibit a degree of enterprise and talent that can- 
not fail to command for them the respect of all intelligent 
men. But these journals, we regret to say, are marked 
exceptions to the general condition of the Southern press ; 
and even the best of these fall far below the standard of ex- 
cellence attained by the leading journals of the North. In 
fact, whether our comparison embraces quantity only, or 
extends to both quantity and quality, it is found to be 
immeasurably in favor of the non-slaveholding States, 
which *in journalism, as in all other industrial pursuits, 
leave their slavery-cursed competitors at an infinite dis- 
tance behind them, and thus vindicate the superiority of 
free institutions, which, recognizing labor as honorable, 
secure its rewards for all. 

The literary vassalage of the South to the North con- 
stitutes in itself a most significant commentary upon the 
diatribes of the former concerning " a purely Southern 






390 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 



literature." To begin at the beginning — the Alphabetical 
Blocks and Educational tables from which our Southern 
abecedarian takes his initial lesson, were projected and 
manufactured in the North. Going forward a step, we 
find the youngling intent in spelling short sentences, or 
gratifying his juvenile fondness for the fine arts by copy- 
ing the wood-cuts from his Northern primer. Yet another 
step, and we discover him with his Sanders' Reader, his 
Mitchell's Geography, his Emerson's Arithmetic, all pro- 
duced by Northern mind and Northern enterprise. There 
is nothing wrong in this ; it is only a little ridiculous in 
view of the fulminations of the Southern pro-slavery press 
against the North. Occasionally however we are amused 
by the efforts of the oligarchs to make their own school- 
books, or to root out of all educational text-books every 
reference to the pestilential heresy of freedom. A " gen- 
tleman" in Charleston, S. C. is devoting his energies to 
the preparation of a series of pro-slavery elementary works, 
consisting of primers, readers, &c. — and lo ! they are all 
printed, stitched and bound north of Mason and Dixon's 
line ! A single fact like this is sufficient to overturn whole 
folios of theory concerning the divinity of slavery. The 
truth is, that, not school-books alone, but works ofalmost 
every class produced by the South, depend upon Northern 
enterprise and skill for their introduction to the public 
Mr. DeBow, the eminent Statistician, publishes a Southern 
Review, purporting to be issued from New Orleans. It 
is printed and bound in the city of New York. We clip 
the following paragraph from a recent number of the 
Yicksburgh (Miss.) Whig: — 



SOUTHERN" LITERATURE. 391 

'' Southern Enterprize. — Even the Mississippi Legislature, 
at its late session allowed its laws to go to Boston to be printed, 
and made an appropriation of $3,000 to pay one of its members 
to go there and read the proof sheets instead of having it done 
in the State, and thereby assisting in building up a Southern 
publishing house. What a commentary on the Yankee-haters !" 

The Greensboro (N. C.) Patriot thus records a similar 
contribution, on the part of that State, to " the creation of 
a purely Southern Literature :' ; 

:: We have heard it said, that those who had the control 
of the printing of the revised Statutes of North Carolina, in 
order to save a few dimes, had the work executed in Boston, in 
preference to giving the job to a citizen of this State. We 
impugn not the motives of the agents in this matter ; but it is a 
little humiliating that no work except the commonest labor, can 
be done in North Carolina ; that everything which requires a little 
skill, capital, or ingenuity, must be sent North. In the case under 
consideration, we have heard it remarked, that when the whole 
bill of expenses connected with the printing of the Revised 
Statutes in Boston was footed up, it only amounted to a few 
thousand dollars more than the job would have cost in this 
State. But then we have the consolation of knowing that 
the book came from the North, and that it was printed among 
the abolitionists of Boston ; the jjeculiar friends of North Carolina 
and the South generally. — Of course we ought to be willing to 
pay a few extra thousands in consideration of these important 
facts !» 

Southern divines give us elaborate " Bible Arguments ;" 
Southern statists heap treatise upon treatise through 
which the Federal Constitution is tortured into all mon- 
strous shapes ; Southern novelists bore us ad infinitum 
with pictures of the beatitudes of plantation life and the 
negro-quarters ; Southern verse- wrights drone out their 



392 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

drowsy dactyls or grow vcntricous with their turgid heroes, 
all in defence of slavery, — priest, politician, novelist, bard- 
ling, severally ringing the changes upon " the Biblical 
institution," " the conservative institution," " the human- 
izing institution," " the patriarchal institution"— and 
then — have their books printed on Northern paper, with 
Northern types, by Northern artizans, stitched, bound and 
made ready for the market by Northern industry ; and 
yet fail to see in all this, as a true philosophical mind 
must see, an overwhelming refutation of their miserable 
sophisms in behalf of a system against which humanity 
in all its impulses and aspirations, and civilization in all 
its activities and triumphs, utter their perpetual protest. 

From a curious article in the "American Publishers' 
Circular" on " Book Making in America," we give the fol- 
lowing extracts : 

"It is somewhat alarming to know that the number of houses 
now actually engaged in the publishing of books, not including 
periodicals, amounts to more than three hundred. About three- 
fourths of these are engaged in Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, 
and Baltimore — the balance being divided between Cincinnati, 
Buffalo, Auburn, Albany, Louisville, Chicago. St. Louis, and a 
few other places. There are more than three thousand book- 
sellers who dispense the publications of these three hundred, be- 
sides six or seven thousand apothecaries, grocers, and hardware 
dealers, who connect literature with drugs, molasses, and nails. 

'' The best printing in America is probably now done in Cam- 
bridge ; the best cloth binding in Boston, and the best calf and 
morocco in New-York and Philadelphia. In these two latter 
styles we are, as yet, a long distance from Heyday, the pride of 
London. His finish is supreme. There is nothing between it 
and perfection. 

" Books have multiplied to such an extent in our country, that 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 393 

it now takes 750 paper mills, with 2,000 engines in constant 
operation, to supply the printers, who work day and night, en- 
deavoring to keep their engagements with publishers. These 
tireless mills produced 270,000.000 pounds of paper the past year, 
which immense supply has sold for about $27,000,000. A pound 
and a quarter of rags were required for a pound of paper, and 
400,000.000 pounds were therefore consumed in this way last 
year. The cost of manufacturing a twelve months' supply of 
paper for the United States, aside from labor and rags, is com- 
puted at $4,000,000. * * * 

"The Harper establishment, the largest of our publishing 
houses, covers half an acre of ground. If old Mr. Caxton, who 
printed those stories of the Trojan war so long ago, could follow 
the Ex-Mayor of New-York in one of his morning rounds in 
Franklin Square, he would be, to say the least, a little surprised. 
He would see in one room the floor loaded with the weight of 
150 tons of presses. The electrotyping process would puzzle 
him somew'hat ; the drying and pressing process would startle 
him ; the bustle would make his head ache ; and the stock-room 
would quite finish him. An edition of Harpers' Monthly Maga- 
zine alone consists of 175,000. Few persous have any idea how 
large a number this is as applied to the edition of a book. It is 
computed that if these magazines were to rain down, and one 
man should attempt to pick them up like chips, it would take 
him a fortnight to pick up the copies of one single number, sup- 
posing him to pick up one every second, and to work ten hours 
a day." 

!; The rapidity with which books are now manufactured is 
almost incredible. A complete copy of one of Bulwer's novels, 
published across the water in three volumes, and reproduced 
here in one, was swept through the press in New-York in fifty 
hours, and offered for sale smoking hot in the streets. The fabu- 
lous edifice proposed by a Yankee from Vermont, no longer seems 
an impossibility. 'Build the establishment according to my 
plan.' said he ; ' drive a sheep in at one end, and he shall imme- 
diately come out at the other, four quarters of lamb, a felt hat, a 
leather apron, and a quarto Bible.' " 

17* 



394 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

The business of the Messrs. Harper, whose establish- 
ment is referred to in the foregoing extract, is probably 
more generally diffused over every section of this country 
than that of any other publishing house. From enquiries 
recently made of them we learn that they issue, on an 
average, 3,000 bound volumes per day, throughout the year, 
and that each volume will average 500 pages — making a 
total of about one million of volumes, and not less than 
five hundred millions of pages per annum. This does not 
include the Magazine and books in pamphlet form, each 
of which contains as much matter as a bound volume. — 
Their bills for paper exceed $300,000 annually, and as the 
average cost is fifteen cents per pound, they consume 
more than two millions of pounds — say one thousand tons 
of white paper. 

There are regularly employed in their own premises 
about 550 persons, including printers, binders, engravers, 
and clerks. These are all paid in full once a fortnight in 
bankable money. Besides these, there are numerous au- 
thors and artists in every section of the country, who fur- 
nish manuscripts and illustrations, on terms generally 
satisfactory to all the parties interested. 

The Magazine has a monthly circulation of between 
115,000 and 200,000, or about two millions of copies annu- 
ally. Each number of the Magazine is closed up about 
the fifth of the month previous to its date. Three or four 
days thereafter the mailing begins, commencing with 
more distant subscribers, all of whom are supplied before 
any copies are sold for delivery in New-York. The inten- 
tion of .the publishers is, that it shall be delivered as nearly 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 305 

as possible on the same clay in St. Louis, New-Orleans, 
Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston, and New- York. It takes 
from ten to twelve days to dispatch the whole edition, 
(which weighs between four and five tons,) by mail and 
express. 

Their new periodical, " Harpers' Weekly," has, in a little 
more than four months, reached a sale of nearly 10,000 
copies. The mailing of this commences on Tuesday night, 
and occupies about three days. 

Ex-Mayor Harper, whom we have found to be one of 
the most affable and estimable gentlemen in the city of 
New-York, informed us, sometime ago, that, though he had 
no means of knowing positively, he was of the opinion that 
about eighty per cent, of all their publications find final 
purchasers in the free States — the remainder, about twenty 
per cent., in the slave States. Yet it is probable that, with 
one or two exceptions, no other publishing house in the 
country has so large a per centage of Southern trade. 

Of the " more than three hundred houses engaged in the 
publication of books," to which the writer in the "Ameri- 
can Publishers' Circular" refers, upwards of nine-tenths of 
the number are in the non-slaveholding States, and these 
represent not less than ninety-nine hundredths of the 
whole capital invested in the business. Baltimore has 
twice as many publishers as any other Southern city ; and 
nearly as many as the whole South beside. The census 
returns of 1850 give but twenty-four publishers for the 
entire South, and ten of these were in Maryland. The 
relative disproportion which then existed in this branch 
of enterprise, between the North and the South, still 



396 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

exists ; or, if it lias been changed at all, that change is 
in favor of the North. So of all the capital, enterprise 
and industry involved in the manufacture of the material 
that enters into the composition of books. All the paper 
manufactories of the South do not produce enough to sup- 
ply a single publishing house in the city of New-York. — 
Perhaps " a Southern Literature" does not necessarily in- 
volve the enterprises requisite to the manufacture of books ; 
but experience has shown that there is a somewhat inti- 
mate relation between the author, printer, paper-maker 
and publisher ; in other words, that the intellectual activ- 
ity which expresses itself in books, is measurable by the 
mechanical activities engaged in their manufacture. — 
Thus a State that is fruitful in authors will almost necessa- 
rily be fruitful in publishers ; and the number of both classes 
will be proportioned to the reading population. The pov- 
erty of Southern literature is legitimately shown, there- 
fore, in the paucity of Southern publishers. We do not 
deny a high degree of cultivated talent to the South ; we 
are familiar with the names of her sons whose genius has 
made them eminent ; all that we insist upon is, that the 
same accursed influence which has smitten her industrial 
enterprises with paralysis, and retarded indefinitely her 
material advancement, has exerted a correspondiug influ- 
ence upon her literature. How it has done this we shall 
more fully indicate before we close the chapter. 

At the " Southern Convention" held some months since 
at Savannah, a good deal was said about " Southern liter- 
ature," and many suggestions made in reference to the 
best means for its promotion. One speaker thought that 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 



391 



" they could get text-books at home without going to either 
Old England or New England for them." Well— they can 
try. The effort will not harm them ; nor the North either. 
The orator was confident " that the South had talent enough 
to do anything that needs to be done, and independence 
enough to do it," The talent we shall not deny ; the inde- 
pendence we are ready to believe in when we see it. When 
she throws off the incubus of slavery under which she goes 
staggering like the Sailor of Bagdad under the weight of 
the Old Man of the Sea, she will prove her independence, 
and demonstrate her ability " to do anything that needs to 
be done." Till then she is but a fettered giant, whose 
vitals are torn by the dogs which her own folly has engen- 
dered. 

Another speaker, on the occasion referred to, half-uncon- 
sciously it would seem, threw a gleam of light upon the 
subject under discussion, which, had not himself and his 
hearers been bat-blind, would have revealed the clue that 
conducts from the darkness in which they burrow to the 
day of redemption for the South. Said he : — 

'■' Northern publishers employ the talent of the South and of 
the whole country to write for them, and pour out thousands an- 
nually for it ; but Southern men expect to get talent without 
paying for it. The Southern Quarterly Review and the Literary 
Messenger are literally struggling for existence, for want of mate- 
rial aid. * * * It is not the South that builds up Northern lit- 
erature— they do it themselves. There is talent and mind and 
poetic genius enough in the South to build up a literature of a 
high order ; but Southern publishers cannot get money enough 
to assist them in their enterprises, and, therefore, the South has 
no literature." 



398 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

Here are truths. " Southern men expect to get talent 
without paying for it." A very natural expectation, con- 
sidering that they have been accustomed to have all their 
material wants supplied by the uncompensated toil of their 
slaves. In this instance it may seem an absurd one, but 
it results legitimately from the system of slavery. That 
system, in fact, operates in a two-fold way against the 
Southern publisher : first, by its practical repudiation of 
the scriptural axiom that the laborer is worthy of his hire ; 
and secondly, by restricting the circle of readers through 
the ignorance which it inevitably engenders. How is it 
that the people of the North build up their literature ? — 
Two w T ords reveal the secret : intelligence — compensation. 
They are a reading "people — the poorest artizan or day-laborer 
has his shelf of books, or his daily or weekly paper, whose 
contents he seldom fails to master before retiring at night ; 
and they are accustomed to pay for all the boohs and papers which 
they peruse. Readers and payers — these are the men who 
insure the prosperity of publishers. Where a system of 
enforced servitude prevails, it is very apt to beget loose 
notions about the obligation of paying for anything ; and 
many minds fail to see the distinction, morally, between 
compelling Sambo to pick cotton without paying him wa- 
ges, or compelling Lippincott & Co. to manufacture books 
for the planter's pleasure or edification upon the same libr 
eral terms. But more than this — where a system of en- 
forced servitude prevails, a fearful degree of ignorance 
prevails also, as its necessary accompaniment. The en- 
slaved masses are, of course, thrust back from the fountains 
of knowledge by the strong arm of law, while the poor 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 399 

non-slaveholding classes arc almost as effectually excluded 
from the institutions of learning by their poverty — the 
sparse population of slaveholding districts being 1 unfavor- 
able to the maintenance of free schools, and the exigencies 
of their condition forbidding them to avail themselves of 
any more costly educational privileges. 

Northern publishers can " employ the talent of the South 
and of the whole country to write for them, and pour out 
thousands annually for it," simply because a reading pop- 
ulation, accustomed to pay for the service which it receives, 
enables them to do so. A similar population at the South 
would enable Southern publishers to do the same. Substi- 
tute free labor for slave labor, the institutions of freedom 
for those of slavery, and it would not long remain true 
that " Southern publishers cannot get money enough to 
assist them in their enterprises, and therefore the South 
has no literature." This is the discovery which the South 
Carolina orator from whom we quote, but narrowly escaped 
making, when he stood upon its very edge, and rounded 
his periods with the truths in whose unapprehended mean- 
ings was hidden this germ of redemption for a nation. 

The self-stultification of folly, however, was never more 
evident than it is in the current gabble of the oligarchs 
about a " Southern literature." They do not mean by it a 
healthy, manly, normal utterance of unfettered minds, 
without which there can be no proper literature ; but an 
emasculated substitute therefor, from which the element 
of freedom is eliminated ; husks, from which the kernel 
has escaped — a body, from which the vitalizing spirit has 
fled — a literature which ignores manhood by confounding 



400 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

it with bfutehood ; or, at best, deals with all similes of 

freedom as treason against the "peculiar institution." 

There is not a single great name in the literary annals of 

the old or new world that could drawf itself to the stature 

requisite to gain admission into the Pantheon erected by 

these devotees of the Inane for their Lilliputian deities. 

Thank God, a " Southern literature," in the sense intended 

by the champions of slavery, is a simple impossibility, 

rendered such by that exility of mind which they demand 

in its producers as a prerequisite to admission into the 

guild of Southern authorship. The tenuous thoughts of 

such authorlings could not survive a single breath of manly 

criticism. The history of the rise, progress, and decline 

of literature could be easily written on a child's smooth 

palm, and leave space enough for its funeral oration and 

epitaph. The latter might appropriately be that which, 

in one of our rural districts, marks the grave of a still-born 

infant : — 

" If so early I am done for. 
I wonder what I was begun for !" 

We desire to see the South bear its just proportion in 
the literary activities and achievements of our common 
country. It has never yet done so, and it never will until 
its own manhood is vindicated in the abolition of slavery. 
The impulse which such a measure would give to all in- 
dustrial pursuits that deal with the elements of material 
prosperity, would be imparted also to the no less valuable 
but more intangible creations of the mind. Take from the 
intellect of the South the incubus which now oppresses it, 
and its rebound would be glorious ; the era of its diviner 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 401 

inspirations would begin ; and its triumphs would be a 
perpetual vindication of the superiority of free institutions 
over those of slavery. 

To Duyckinck's " Cyclopedia of American Literature — a 
sort of Omnium-gather urn that reminds one of Jeremiah's 
figs — we are indebted for the following facts : The whole 
number of " American authors" whose place of nativity 
is given, is five hundred and sixty-nine. Of these seventy- 
nine were foreign born, eighty-seven were natives of the 
South, and four hundred and three — a vast majority of 
the whole, first breathed the vital air in the free North. 
Many of those who were born in the South, received their 
education in the North, quite a number of whom became 
permanent residents thereof. Still, for the purposes of 
this computation, we count them on the side of the South. 
Yet how significant the comparison which this computa- 
tion furnishes i Throwing the foreign born (adopted 
citizens, mostly residents of the North) out of the reckoning, 
and the record stands, — Northern sfathors fowr hundred and 
three ; Southern, eighty-seven — a difference of three hundred 
and "sixteen in favor of the North ! And this, probably, 
indicates very fairly the relative intellectual activity of 
the two sections. 

We accept the facts gleaned from Duyckinck's work as 
a basis, simply, of our estimate : not as being absolutely 
accurate in themselves, though they are doubtless relia- 
ble in the main, and certainly as fair for the South as 
they are for the North. We might dissent from the judg- 
ment of the compiler in reference to the propriety of 
applying the term "literature" to much that his compila- 



402 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

tion contains ; but as tastes have proverbially differed 
from the days of the venerable darne who kissed her cow 
— not to extend our researches into the condition of tilings 
anterior to that interesting event — we will not insist upon 
our view of the matter, but take it for granted that he has 
disentombed from forgotten reviews, newspapers, pamph- 
lets, and posters, a fair relative proportion of " authors" 
for both North and South, for which " American Litera- 
ture" is unquestionably under infinite obligations to him ! 

Gris wold's " Poets and Poetry of America" and Thomas 
Buchanan Read's " Female Poets of America" furnish evi- 
dence, equally conclusive, of the benumbing influence of 
slavery upon the intellect of a country. Of course, these 
compilers say nothing about Slavery, and probably never 
thought of it in connection with their respective works, 
but none the less significant on that account is the testi- 
mony of the facts which they give. From the last edition 
of Griswold's compilation, ('which contains the names of 
none of our female writers, he having included them in a 
separate volume) we find the names of one hundred and 
forty-one writers of verse : of these one was foreign-born, 
seventeen natives of the slaveholding, and one hundred and 
twenty-three, of the non-slaveholding States. Of our female 
poets, whose nativity is given by Mr. Read, eleven are 
natives of the South ; and seventy-three of the North ! These 
simple arithmetical figures are God's eternal Scripture 
against the folly and madness of Slavery, and need no aid 
of rhetoric to give emphasis to the startling eloquence of 
tbeir revelations. 

But, after all, literature is not to be estimated by cubic 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 403 

feet or pounds averdupois, nor measured by the bushel or 
the yardstick. Quality, rather than quantity, is the true 
standard of estimation. The fact, however, matters little 
for our present purpose ; for the South, we are sorry to 
say, is as much behind the North in the former as in the 
latter. We do not forget the names of Gayarre, Benton, 
Simms, and other eminent citizens of the Slave States, 
who have by their contributions to American letters con- 
ferred honor upon themselves and upon our common coun- 
try, when we affirm, that those among our authors who 
enjoy a cosmopolitan reputation, are, with a few honor- 
able exceptions, natives of the Free North ; and that the 
names which most brilliantly illustrate our literature, in 
its every department, are those which have grown into 
greatness under the nurturing influence of free institu- 
tions. " Comparisons are odious," it is said ; and we will 
not, unnecessarily, render them more so, in the present 
instance, by contrasting, name by name, the literary men 
of the South with the literary men of the North. We do 
not depreciate the former, nor overestimate the latter. 
But let us ask, whence come our geographers, our astron- 
omers, our chemists, our meteorologists, our ethnologists, 
and others, who have made their names illustrious in the 
domain of the Natural Sciences ? Not from the Slave 
States, certainly. In the Literature of Law, the South 
can furnish no name that can claim peership with those of 
Story and of Kent ; in History, none that tower up to the 
altitude of Bancroft, Prescott, Hildreth, Motley and Wash- 
ington Irving ; in Theology, none that can challenge 
favorable comparison with those of Edwards, Dwight, 



404 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

Channing, Taylor, Bushnell, Tyler and Wayland : in Fic- 
tion, none that take rank with Cooper, and Mrs. Stowc ; 
and but few that may do so with even the second class 
novelists of the North ;* in Poetry, none that can command 
position with Bryant, Halleck, and Percival, with "Whit- 
tier, Longfellow, and Lowell, with Willis, Stoddard and 
Taylor, with Holmes, Saxe, and Burleigh ; and — we might 
add twenty other Northern names before we found their 
Southern peer, with the exception of poor Toe, who, with- 
in a narrow range of subjects, showed himself a poet 
of consummate art, and occupies a sort of debatable 
ground between our first and second-class writers. 

We might extend this comparison to our writers in 
every department of letters, from the compiler of school- 
boo°ks to the author of the most profound ethical treatise, 
and with precisely the same result. But we forbear. 
The task is distasteful to our State pride, and would have 
been entirely avoided had not a higher principle urged us 
to its performance. It remains for us now to enquire, 

What has produced this literary pauperism of the South ? 
One single word, most pregnant in its terrible meanings, 
answers the question. That word is — Slavery ! But we 
have been so long accustomed to the ugly thing itself, 
and have become so familiar with its no less ugly fruits, 
that the common mind fails to apprehend the connection 
between the one, as cause, and the other as effect ; and 



* We Southrons all glory in the literary reputation of Mr. Simms ; 
yet we must confess his inferiority to Cooper, and prejudice alone 
will refuse to admit, that, while in the art of the novelist he is the 
superior of Mrs. Stowe, in genius he must take position below her. 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 405 

it therefore becomes necessary to give a more detailed 
answer to our interrogatory. 

Obviously, then, the conditions requisite to a flourish- 
ing literature are wanting at the South. These are — 

I. Readers. The people of the South are not a reading 
people. Many of the adult population never learned to 
read ; still more, do not care to read. We have been im- 
pressed, during a temporary sojourn in the North, with 
the difference between the middle and laboring classes in 
the Free States, and the same classes in the Slave States, 
in this respect. Passing along the great routes of travel 
in the former, or taking our seat in the comfortable cars 
that pass up and down the avenues of our great commer- 
cial metropolis, we have not failed to contrast the employ- 
ment of our fellow-passengers with that which occupies 
the attention of the corresponding classes on our various 
Southern routes of travel. In the one case, a large pro- 
portion of the passengers seem intent upon mastering the 
contents of the newspaper, or some recently published 
book. The- merchant, the mechanic, the artizan, the pro- 
fessional man, and even the common laborer, going to or 
returning from their daily avocations, are busy with their 
morning or evening paper, or engaged in an intelligent 
discussion of some topic of public interest. This is their 
leisure hour, and it is given to the acquisition of such in- 
formation as may be of immediate or ultimate use, or to 
the cultivation of a taste for elegant literature. In the 
other case, newspapers and books seem generally ignored, 
and noisy discussions of village and State polities, the 
tobacco and cotton-crops, filibusterisin i^juba, Nicaragua, 



40(3 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

or Sonora, the price of negroes generally, and especially 
of "fine-looking wenches," the beauties of lynch-law, the 
delights of horse-racing, the excitement of street fights 
with bowie-knives and revolvers, the "manifest destiny" 
theory that justifies the stealing of all territory contigu- 
ous to our own, and kindred topics, constitute the warp 
and woof of conversation. All this is on a level with the 
general intelligence of the Slave States. It is true, these 
States have their educated men— the majority of whom 
owe their literary culture to the colleges of the North. 
Not that there are no Southern colleges-for there are in- 
stitutions, so called, in a majority of the Slave States.- 
Some of them, too, are not deficient in the appointments 
requisite to our higher educational institutions ; but as a 
general thing, Southern colleges are colleges only in name, 
and will scarcely take rank with a third-rate Northern 
academy, while our academies, with a few exceptions, are 
immeasurably inferior to the public schools of New-York, 
Philadelphia, and Boston. The truth is, there is a vast 
inert mass of stupidity and ignorance, too dense for indi- 
vidual effort to enlighten or remove, in all communities 
cursed with the institution of slavery. Disguise the un- 
welcome truth as we may, slavery is the parent of igno- 
rance, and ignorance begets a whole brood of follies and 
of vices, and every one of these is inevitably hostile to 
literary 'culture. The masses, if they think of literature 
at all, think of it only as a costly luxury, to be monopo- 
lized by the few. 

The proportion of white adults over twenty years of age, 



southern literatitj:. 401 

in each State, who cannot read and write, to the whole 
white population, is as follows : 



Connecticut, 


1 to 


every 


■5G8 


Louisiana, 


1 to 


every 


•38A 


Vermont, 


1 


u 


473 


Maryland 


1 


u 


27 


N. Hampshire, 


1 


(I 


310 


Mississippi, 


1 


(i 


20 


Massachusetts, 


1 


u 


16G 


Delaware, 


1 


ci 


18 


Maine, 


1 


a 


108 


South Carolina, 


1 


ce 


17 


Michigan, 


1 


u 


97 


Missouri, 


1 


(. 


16 


Rhode Island, 


1 


CC 


67 


Alabama, 


1 


(i 


15 


New Jersey, 


1 


(i 


58 


Kentucky. 


1 


a 


13* 


New York, 


1 


« 


5G 


Georgia, 


1 


<( 


13 


Pennsylvania, 


1 


(C 


50 


Virginia, 


1 


« 


m 


Ohio, 


1 


c< 


43 


Arkansas, 


1 


i. 


ii* 


Indiana, 


1 


K 


18 


Tennessee, 


1 


(C 


a 


Illinois, 


1 


U 


17 


North Carolina, 


1 


Ci 


7 



In this table, Illinois and Indiana are the only Free 
States which, in point of education, are surpassed by any 
of the Slave States ; and this disgraceful fact is owing-, 
principally, to the influx of foreigners, and to immigrants 
from the Slave States. New- York, Rhode Island, and 
Pennsylvania have also a large foreign element in their 
population, that swells very considerably this percent- 
age of ignorance. For instance, New- York shows, by 
the last census, a population of 98,122 who cannot read 
and write, and of this number 68,052 are foreigners ; 
Rhode Island, 3,601, of whom 2,359 are foreigners ; Penn- 
sylvania, 16,212, of whom 24,989 are foreigners. On the 
other hand, the ignorance of the Slave States is princi- 
pally native ignorance, but comparatively few emigrants 
from Europe seeking a home upon a soil cursed with " the 
peculiar institution." North Carolina has a foreign popu- 



408 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

lation of only 340, South Carolina only 104, Arkansas only 
27, Tennessee only 505, and Virginia only 1,137, who can- 
not read and write ; while the aggregate of native igno- 
rance in these five States (exclusive of the slaves, who are 
debarred all education by law) is 278,948 ! No longer ago 
than 1837, Governor Clarke, of Kentucky, in his message 
to the Legislature of that State, declared that " by the 
computation of those most familiar with the subject, one- 
third of the adult population of the State are unable to write 
their names ;" and Governor Campbell, of Virginia, reported 
to the Legislature, that "from the returns of ninety-eight 
clerks, it appeared that of 4,614 applications for marriage 
licenses in 1837, no less than 1,047 were made by men 
unable to write." 

Iu the Slave States the proportion of free white children 
between the ages of five and twenty, who are found at 
any school or college, is not quite one-fifth of the whole ; 
in the Free States, the proportion is more than three-fifths. 
We could fill our pages with facts like these to an 
almost indefinite extent, but it cannot be necessary. No 
truth is more demonstrable, nay, no truth has been more 
abundantly demonstrated, than this : that Slavery is hos- 
tile to general education ; its strength, its very life, is in 
the ignorance and stolidity of the masses ; it naturally 
and necessarily represses general literary culture. To 
talk, therefore, of the " creation of a purely Southern 
Literature," without readers to demand, or writers to pro- 
duce it, is the mere babble of idiocy. 

II. Another thing essential to She creation of a litera- 
ture is Mental Freedom. How much of that is to be found 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 409 

in the region of Slavery ? We will not say that there is 
none ; but if it exists, it exists as the outlawed antagonist 
of human chattelhood. He who believes that the despo- 
tism of the accursed institution expends its malignant 
forces upon the slave, leaving intact the white and (so called) 
free population, is the victim of a most monstrous delu- 
sion. One end of the yoke that bows the African to the 
dust, presses heavily upon the neck of his Anglo-Saxon 
master. The entire mind of the South either stultifies 
itself into acquiescence with Slavery, succumbs to its 
authority, or chafes in indignant protest against its 
monstrous pretensions and outrageous usurpations. A 
free press is an institution almost unknown at the South. 
Free speech is considered as treason against slavery : 
and when people dare neither speak nor print their 
thoughts, free thought itself is well nigh extinguished. 
All that can be said in defence of human bondage, may be 
spoken freely ; but question either its morality or its 
policy, and the terrors of lynch law are at once invoked to 
put down the pestilent heresy. The legislation of the 
Slave States for the suppression of the freedom of speech 
and the press, is disgraceful and cowardly to the last 
degree, and can find its parallel only in the meanest and 
bloodiest despotisms of the Old World. No institution 
that could bear the light would thus sneakingly seek to 
burrow itself in utter darkness. Look, too, at the inobbings, 
lynchings, robberies, social and political proscriptions, 
and all manner of nameless outrages, to which men in the 
South have been subje- ed, simply upon the suspicion that 

the.v were the enemies of Slavery. We could fill page 

18 



410 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

after page of this volume, with the record of such atroci- 
ties. But a simple reference to them is enough. Our 
countrymen have not yet forgotten why John C. Under- 
wood was, but a few months since, banished from' his 
home in Virginia, and the accomplished Hedreck driven 
from his College professorship in North Carolina. They 
believed Slavery inimical to the best interest of the South, 
and for daring to give expression to this belief in mode- 
rate yet manly language, they were ostracised by the 
despotic Slave Power, and compelled to seek a refuge 
from its vengeance in States where the principles of free- 
dom are better understood. Pending the last Presiden- 
tial election, there were thousands, nay, tens of thousands 
of voters in the Slave States, who desired to give their 
suffrages for the Republican nominee, John C. Fremont, 
himself a Southron, but a non-slaveholder. The Consti- 
tution of the United States guaranteed to these men an 
expression of their preference at the ballot-box. But were 
they permitted such an expression ? Not at all. They 
were denounced, threatened, overawed, by the Slave 
Power — and it is not too much to say that there was 
really no Constitutional election, — that is, no such free ex- 
pression of political preferences as the Constitution aims 
to secure — in a majority of the Slave States. 

From a multiplicity of facts like these, the inference is 
unavoidable, that Slavery tolerates no freedom of the 
press — no freedom of speech — no freedom of opinion. To 
expect that a whole-souled, manly literature can flourish 
under such conditions, is as absurd as it would be to look 
for health amid the pestilential vapors of a dungeon, or 



SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 411 

for the continuance of animal life without the aid of 
oxygen. 

III. Mental activity — force — enterprise — are requisite 
to the creation of literature. Slavery tends to sluggish- 
ness — imbecility — inertia. Where free thought is trea- 
son, the masses will not long take the trouble of thinking 
at all. Desuetude begets incompetence — the dare-mot soon 
becomes the cannot. The mind thus enslaved, necessarily 
loses its interest in the processes of other minds ; and its 
tendency is to sink down into absolute stolidity or sot- 
tishness. Our remarks find melancholy confirmation in 
the abject servilism in which multitudes of the non-slave- 
holding whites of the South are involved. In them, 
ambition, pride, self-respect, hope, seem alike extinct. 
Their slaveholding fellows are, in some respects, in a still 
more unhappy condition — helpless, nerveless, ignorant, 
selfish ; yet vain-glorious, self-sufficient and brutal. Are 
these the chosen architects who are expected to build up 
" a purely Southern literature V 

The truth is, slavery destroys, or vitiates, or pollutes, 
whatever it touches. No interest of society escapes the 
influence of its clinging curse. It makes Southern religion 
a stench in the nostrils of Christendom — it makes Southern 
politics a libel upon all the principles of Republicanism — 
it makes Southern literature a travesty upon the honora- 
ble profession of letters. Than the better class of South- 
ern authors themselves, none will feel more keenly the 
truth of our remarks. They write books, but can find for 
them neither publishers nor remunerative sales at the 
South. The executors of Calhoun seek, for his works, a 



412 SOUTHERN LITERATURE. 

Northern publisher. Benton writes history and prepares 
voluminous compilations, which are given to the world 
through a Northern publisher. Simms writes novels and 
poems, and they are scattered abroad from the presses of 
a Northern publisher. Eighty per cent, of all the copies 
sold are probably bought by Northern readers. 

When will Southern authors understand their own in- 
terests ? "When will the South, as a whole, abandoning 
its present suicidal policy, enter upon that career of pros- 
perity, greatness, and true renown, to which God by his 
word and his providences, is calling it ? " If thou take 
away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth 
of the finger and speaking vanity ; and if thou draw out 
thy soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul ; then 
shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the 
noonday : And the Lord shall guide thee continually and 
satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones ; and 
thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of 
water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of 
thee shall build the old waste places ; thou shalt raise up 
the foundations of many generations ; and thou shalt be 
called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to 
dwell in." 

Our limits, not our materials, are exhausted. We would 
gladly say more, but can only, in conclusion, add as the 
result of our investigations in this department of our sub- 
ject, that Literature and Liberty a n hie; the one can 
never have a vigorous existence without being wedded to the other. 



CONCLUSION. 413 

Our work is done. It is the voice of the non-slavehold- 
ing whites of the South, through one identified with them 
by interest, by feeling, by position. That voice, by whom- 
soever spoken, must yet be heard and heeded. The time 
hastens — the doom of slavery is written — the redemption 
of the South draws nigh. 

In taking leave of our readers, we know not how we 
can give more forcible expression to our thoughts and in- 
tentions than by saying that, in concert with the intelligent 
free voters of the North, we, the non-slaveholding whites 
of the South, expect to elevate John C. Fremont, Cassius 
M. Clay, James Gr. Birney, or some other Southern non- 
slaveholder, to the Presidency in 1860 ; and that the pa- 
triot thus elevated to that dignified station will, through 
our cordial co-operation, be succeeded by William H. Sew- 
ard, Charles Sumner, John McLean, or some other non- 
slaveholder of the North ; — and furthermore, that if, in 
these or in any other similar cases, the oligarchs do not 
quietly submit to the will of a constitutional majority of 
the people, as expressed at the ballot-box, the first battle 
between freedom and slavery will be fought at home — and 
may God defend the right ! 



the end. 



Notice to the Reader. — The few typographical errors which occur in 
this, the first edition of the work in hand, shall be found corrected in the second 
and subsequent editions. AVe will here call attention to only three of the most 
palpable of those errors. They are as follows : — The word " only" in the 17th 
line of the 151st page, should be duty. The word " different" in the 10th line 
of the 158th page, should be difficult. The word " more" in the 19th line of 
the 191st page, should be none. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Abstract of the Author's Plan for the Abolition of Slavery, 155. 

Achenwall, 29. 

Adams, John Quincy, 239. 

Agriculture and other out-door pursuits, number of free white male 

Southrons encased in, 298. 
Agricultural Products.— See Corn, Wheat, Rye, Oats, Barley, Hay, 

Cotton, Tobacco, &c. &c. 
Animals Slaughtered, Value of, 71. 
Anti-slavery Letters from native Southrons, 374. 
Area of the several States and Territories. 143. 
Aristotle, 256. 
Attorneys-General, 312. 
Baltimore, Letter from the Mayor of, 337. 
Baltimore, Past, Present, and Future, 352. 
Baltimore, Why this Work was not published there, 360. 
Bancroft, George, 384. 
Bank Capital of the several States, 286. 
Banks, James, 384. 
Baptist Testimony, 263. 
Barley, 36. 

Barnes, Rev. Albert, 259. 
Beans and Peas, 37. 
Beattie, James, 251. 
Beeswax and Honey, 64. 
Benton, Thomas H., 19, 105, 167, 207. 
Bible Testimony, 275 — Bible Cause Contributions, 295. 
Birney, James G., 214, 413. 
Blackstone, Sir William, 248. 
Blair, Francis P., 105, 167, 213. 
Boiling, Philip A., 211. 
Book Making in America, 392. 
Booth, Abraham, 268. 
Boston, Letter from the Mayor of, 338. 
Botts, John M., 167. 
Brisbane, Rev. Mr., 263. 
Brissot, 253. 

Brooklyn, Letter from the Mayor of, 339. 
Brougham, Lord, 250. 
Browne, R. K., 322. 
Buchanan, James, 170. 
Buckwheat, 37. 

Buffalo, Letter from the Mayor of, 344. 
Buffon, 253. 
Burke, Edmund, 250. 
Butler, Bishop, 261. 



416 GENERAL IXDEX. 

Butter and Cheese, 64. 

Cameron, Paul C, 49, 55. 

Canals, miles of, in the several States, 285. 

Cane, Sugar, 53, 65. 

Cortwright, Dr., of New-Orleans, 801. 

Catholic Testimony, 271. 

Chandler, Mr., of Virginia, 211. 

Charleston, Letter from the Mayor of, 340. 

Chicago, Letter from, 342. 

Churches, Value of, in the several States, 294. 

Cicero, 254. 

Cincinnati, Letter from the Mayor of, 340. 

Cities, nine Free and nine Slave, 347. 

Clarke, Dr. Adam, 269. 

Clarke, Judge, of Mississippi, 223. 

Clay, Henry, 205. 

Clay, Cassius M., 206, 301, 413. 

Clay, C. C, 56. 

Clinton, DeWitt, 242. 

Clover and Grass Seed, 37. 

Coke, Sir Edward, 249. 

Colonization Movements, 183. 

Colonization Cause Contributions, 296. 

Commercial Cities — Southern Commerce, 331. 

Comparison between the Free and the Slave States, 11 

Com, 85, 69. 

Cotton, 53, 65. 

Cowper, William, 247. 

Cragin, A. H., 190. 

Curran, John Philpot, 250. 

Curtis, Mr., of Virginia, 101. 

Darien (Georgia) Resolutions, 231. 

Davis, Henry Winter, 167. 

Deaths in the several States in 1850, 297. 

DeBow, J. D. B., 30, 50, 83. 

Dublin University Magazine, 251. 

Emigration to Liberia, 183. 

Episcopal Testimony, 261. 

Etlievidge, Emerson, 167, """3. 

Expenditures of the several States, 80. 

Exports, 283. 

Facta and Arguments by the Wayside, 360. 

Farms, Cash Value of, 71. 

Faulkner, Charles James, 98, 175. 

Flax, 62— Flaxseed, 38. 

Fortescue, Sir John, 249. 

Fox, Charles James, 246. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 235. 

Free Figures and Slave, 281. 

Free White Agriculturalists in the Slave States, 298. 



GENERAL V ■ -H 7 



Freedom and Slavery at the Fair, 323. 

Freedom in the South, Progress of, 367. 

Fremont, John Charles, 170, '212, 410, 413. 

Gaston, Judge, of North Carolina, 225. 

Garden Products, Value of, 38 

Goethe, 254. 

Goodloe, Daniel R., 112. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 381. 

Graham, William H., 167. 

Graves, Calvin, 167. 

Greeley, Horace, 364. 

Grotius,,253. 

Hall, Dr. James, 182. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 237. 

Hammond, Gov., 165, 301. 

Hampden, John, 249. 

Harper Brothers, 394. 

Harrington, James, 249. 

Hay, 53. 

Hedrick, B. S., Prof., 305, 410. 

Hemp, 53, 62. 

Henry, Patrick, 84, 200. 

Hildreth, Richard, 384. 

Hoffman, H.W., 167. 

Honey, 64. 

Hops, 62. 

Horsley, Bishop, 261. 

How Slavery can be Abolished, 123. 

Hunt, Freeman, 349. 

Hurlbut, William Henry, 229, 316. 

Illiterate Poor Whites of the South, 376. 

Illiterate White Adults, 291, 407 

Imports, 283. 

Indian Corn, 35, 69. 

Inhabitants to the Square Mile, 14°. 

Inventions, New, Patents issued on, in 1856, 294. 

Iredell, Judge, 210. 

Jay, John, Judge, 237. 

Jay, John, Esq., 261. 

Jay, William, 239. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 195, 222. 

Johnson, Samuel, Dr., 248. 

Kansas, Aid for, 318. 

Kemp, Henry, 273. 

Lactantius, 255. 

Lafayette, Gen., 252—0. Lafayette, 252. 

Lawrence, Abbott and Amos, 106. 

Leigh, Mr., of Virginia, 210. 

Leo X., 255. 

Liberia, Emigration to, 183. 



418 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Libraries Other than Private, 289. 

Live Stock, Value of, 71. 

Locke, John, 216. 

Louis X., 253. „. 1 

Louisville, Letter from the Mayor of, oil. 

Luther, Martin, 251. 

McDowell, Gov., 209. 

McLane, of Delaware, 21o. 

Macfarland. Wm. H., 167. 

Macknight, James, D.D., 251. 

Madison, James, 82, 199. 

Mansfield, Lord, 246. 

Manufactures, Products of, 284. 

Maple Sugar, 63. 

Martin, Luther, 216. 

Marshall, Humphrey, 16*. 

Marshall, Thomas, 211, 

Mason, James M., 223. 

Mason, John W., 381. 

Mason, Col., of Virginia, 208. 

Massachusetts and North Carolina, 14. 

Maurv, M. F., 213. 

Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, 221. 

Methodist Testimony, 269. 

Militia Force of the Several States, 28b. 

Miller, H. W., 167. 

Miller, Prof, of Glasgow, 251. 

Milton, John, 218. _ 

Missionary Cause Contributions, 29b. 

Monroe, James, 200. 

Montesquieu, 252. 

Moore, Mr., of Virginia, 101. 

Morehead, John M., 167. 

National Political Power of the Several States, 292 

Natives of the Slave States in the Free States, and Natives of the 
Free States in the Slave States, 304. 

New-Bedford, Letter from the Mayor of, 345. 

New-Orleans, Letter from the Mayor of, 337. 

Newspapers and Periodicals, 290. 

New-York and Virginia, 12. 

New-York and North Carolina, 32o. 

New- York City, Letter from the Mayor of, 336. 

Norfolk, Letter from, 314. 

North American and United States Gazette, 87, 111, 114- 

North Carolina and Massachusetts, 14. 



North Carolina and New-York, 325 
Northern Testimony, 235. //? 
Nott, J. C, Dr. 302, 303. JS 



Oats, 35, 69. 

Oglethorpe, Gen., 23(^ T\ „ jj 3 & 



GENERAL INDEX. 



419 



Orchard Products, Value of, 38. 

Patents Issued on New Inventions, 29-4. 

Pennsylvania and South Carolina, 17. 

Perry, B. F., 229. 

Pettyjohn, Charles, 363. 

Philadelphia, Letter from the Mayor of, 337. 

Pinkney, William, 210, 215. 

Pitt, William, 216. 

Plato, 256. 

Polybius, 256. 

Pope Gregory XVI., 271. 

Pope Leo X., 255. 

Popular Vote for President in 1856, 293. 

Population of the Several States, 141. 

Porteus, Bishop, 261. 

Postmasters-General, 311. 

Post Office Statistics, 287. 

Potatoes, 36, 69. 

Powell, Mr., of Virginia, 102. 

Precepts and Sayings of the Old Testament, 276. 

Precepts and Sayings of the New Testament, 277. 

Presbyterian Testimony, 259. 

Presidents of the United States, 307. 

Presidential Elections in the U. S. from 1796 to 1856, 317. 

Preston, Mr., of Virginia, 212. 

Price, Dr., of London, 218. 

Providence, Letter from the Mayor of, 343. 

Railroads. Miles of, in the Several States, 285. 

Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 201. 

Randolph, Thomas M., 202. 

Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, 202. 

Randolph, Peyton, 204. 

Randolph, Edmund, 204. 

Raynal, The Abbe, 273. 

Raynor, Kenneth, 167, 169. 

Recapitulation of the Quantity and Value of Bushel-Measure Pro- 
ducts, 39-40. 

Recapitulation of the Quantity and Value of Pound-Measure Pro- 
ducts, 65. 

Recapitulation of the Value of Farms and Domestic Animals, 72. 

Real and Personal Property, 80. 

Reid, Mr., of Georgia, 233. 

Revenue of the Several States, 80. 

Rice, 53, 65. 

Richmond, Letter from, 342. 

Ritchie, Thomas, 92, 105. 

Rives, Mr., of Virginia, 101, 104. 

Rousseau, 253. 

Ruin, Judge, of North Carolina, 224. 

Rye, 36, 69, 72. 



420 GENERAL INDEX. 

Savannah, Letter from the Mayor of, 345. 

Schools, Eublic, 288. 

Scott, Thomas, (Commentator), 260. 

Secretaries of State, 309. 

Secretaries of the Interior, 312. 

Secretaries of the Treasury, 313. 

Secretaries of War, 314. 

Secretaries of the Navy, 315. 

Shakspeare, 247. 

Slaveholders, Number of, in the United States, 140. 

Value of, at $400 per head, 306. 
Slavery, Legislative Acts against, 361. 
Slavery Thoughtful— Signs of Contrition, 365. 
Smith" Gen-it, 318. 
Socrates, 256. 

Carolina and Pennsylvania. 17. 
Southern Literature, 3S3. 
Southern Testimony against Slavery, 188. 

bers of the House of Representatives, 310. 
St. Louis, Letter from the Mayor of, 839. 
Stanly, Edward, 167. 

.' the Several, when First Settled, 321-322. 
Statistics, Science of, 29, 30. 
Stuart, A, II. II., 167. 
Summers, Mr., of Virginia, 212. 
Supreme Court, Judges of, 808. 
Tarver, M., 1G4. 
Taylor, Win. C, L.L.D., 29. 
Territories, the, Area and Population of, 145. 
mony of the Nations. 2 

of Hie Churches, - »8. 
Tobacco, 53, 62, 78. 
Tonnage of the Several States, 283. 
Tract Cause Contributions, 295. 

i wood, John C, 410. 

: u and New-York, 12. 
Votes cast for President in 1856, 293. 

. Classification of, Polled at the I hi 1856, 

Walker, Robert J., 105. 
Warren, Joseph, Gen., 212. 
Washington, George, Gen.,J93. 
Wayland, Francis, D.D., 264. 

: i of the Several States, 80. / 

Web-' l 1.240. 
Wet 117, 211, 381. 

.1 hn. Rev., 269. 
Weston, George M., 164. 
Wheat, 35, 69, 78. 

Why the .North has surpassed the South. 
Wise, Henry A., 13, 90, 102. 



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